area handbook series 

Albania 

a country study 



* 




Albania 

a country study 



Federal Research Division 
Library of Congress 
Edited by 
Raymond Zickel and 
Walter R. Iwaskiw 
Research Completed 
April 1992 



On the cover: Clock tower, mosque of Ethem Bey in central 
Tirane 



Second Edition, First Printing, 1994. 

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data 

Albania : a country study / Federal Research Division, Library of 
Congress ; edited by Raymond E. Zickel and Walter R. Iwaskiw. — 
2nd ed. 

p. cm. — (Area handbook series, ISSN 1057-5294) 
(DA Pam ; 550-98) 

"Research completed April 1992." 

"Supersedes the 1970 edition of Area handbook for Albania, 
coauthored by Eugene K. Keefe et al." — T.p. verso. 

Includes bibliographical references (pp. 251-262) and index. 
ISBN 0-8444-0792-5 

1. Albania. I. Zickel, Raymond E., 1934- . II. Iwaskiw, 
Walter R., 1958- . III. Library of Congress. Federal Research 
Division. IV. Area handbook for Albania. V. Series. VI. Series: 
DA Pam ; 550-98. 
DR910.A347 1994 93-42885 
949.65— dc20 CIP 



Headquarters, Department of the Army 
DA Pam 550-98 



For sale by the Superintendent of Documents, U.S. Government Printing Office 
Washington, D.C. 20402 



Foreword 



This volume is one in a continuing series of books prepared by 
the Federal Research Division of the Library of Congress under 
the Country Studies/Area Handbook Program sponsored by the 
Department of the Army. The last page of this book lists the other 
published studies. 

Most books in the series deal with a particular foreign country, 
describing and analyzing its political, economic, social, and national 
security systems and institutions, and examining the interrelation- 
ships of those systems and the ways they are shaped by cultural 
factors. Each study is written by a multidisciplinary team of social 
scientists. The authors seek to provide a basic understanding of 
the observed society, striving for a dynamic rather than a static 
portrayal. Particular attention is devoted to the people who make 
up the society, their origins, dominant beliefs and values, their com- 
mon interests and the issues on which they are divided, the nature 
and extent of their involvement with national institutions, and their 
attitudes toward each other and toward their social system and 
political order. 

The books represent the analysis of the authors and should not 
be construed as an expression of an official United States govern- 
ment position, policy, or decision. The authors have sought to 
adhere to accepted standards of scholarly objectivity. Corrections, 
additions, and suggestions for changes from readers will be wel- 
comed for use in future editions. 

Louis R. Mortimer 
Chief 

Federal Research Division 
Library of Congress 
Washington, D.C. 20540 



iii 



Acknowledgments 



The authors acknowledge the numerous individuals who con- 
tributed to the preparation of this edition of Albania: A Country Study. 
The work of Eugene K. Keefe, Sarah J. Elpern, William Giloane, 
James M. Moore, Jr., Stephen Peters, and Eston T. White, the 
co-authors of the previous edition who completed their research 
in 1970, is greatly appreciated as both substantive and useful. Spe- 
cial thanks go to Charles Sudetic for expending his time and ener- 
gy to take the many interesting photographs from which those in 
the book were selected. 

The authors also gratefully acknowledge Ralph K. Benesch for his 
oversight of the Country Studies — Area Handbook Program for the 
Department of the Army and Sandra W. Meditz of the Federal 
Research Division for her guidance and suggestions. Special thanks 
also go to the following individuals: Marilyn L. Majeska for review- 
ing editing and managing production; Andrea T. Merrill for editori- 
al assistance; Teresa E. Kamp for cover and chapter illustrations; 
David P. Cabitto for graphics and map support; Harriet R. Blood, 
together with the firm of Greenhorne and O'Mara, for prepara- 
tion of the maps; Pirkko M. Johnes for researching and writing 
the Country Profile; and Helen Fedor for preparing photograph 
captions. 

Special thanks are also owed to Evan A. Raynes and Vincent 
Ercolano, who edited the chapters, and to Barbara Edgerton and 
Izella Watson, who did the word processing. Catherine Schwartz- 
stein performed the final p republication editorial review. Joan C. 
Cook compiled the index, and Linda Peterson of the Library of 
Congress Printing and Processing Section prepared the camera- 
ready copy, under the supervision of Peggy Pixley. 



Contents 



Page 

Foreword iii 

Acknowledgments v 

Preface xiii 

Table A. Chronology of Important Events xv 

Country Profile * xxvii 

Introduction XXXV 

Chapter 1. Historical Setting 1 

Charles Sudetic 

THE ANCIENT ILLYRIANS 4 

THE BARBARIAN INVASIONS AND THE 

MIDDLE AGES 7 

THE ALBANIAN LANDS UNDER OTTOMAN 

DOMINATION, 1385-1876 9 

The Ottoman Conquest of Albania 9 

Albanians under Ottoman Rule 12 

Local Albanian Leaders in the Early Nineteenth 

Century 15 

NATIONAL AWAKENING AND THE BIRTH OF 

ALBANIA, 1876-1918 16 

The Rise of Albanian Nationalism 17 

The Balkan Wars and Creation of Independent 

Albania 21 

World War I and Its Effects on Albania 23 

INTERWAR ALBANIA, 1918-41 1 . . 24 

Albania's Reemergence after World War I 24 

Social and Economic Conditions after World War I . . 26 

Government and Politics 27 

Italian Penetration 29 

Zog's Kingdom 31 

Italian Occupation » . 32 

WORLD WAR II AND THE RISE OF COMMUNISM, 

1941-44 33 

The Communist and Nationalist Resistance 34 

The Communist Takeover of Albania 36 



vii 



COMMUNIST ALBANIA 37 

Consolidation of Power and Initial Reforms 38 

Albanian-Yugoslav Tensions 40 

Deteriorating Relations with the West 43 

Albania and the Soviet Union 44 

Albania and China 46 

The Cultural and Ideological Revolution 49 

The Break with China and Self-Reliance 50 

Chapter 2. The Society and Its Environment .... 55 

Walter R. Iwaskiw 

PHYSICAL ENVIRONMENT 57 

National Boundaries 57 

Topography 59 

Drainage 63 

Climate 64 

THE ALBANIAN PEOPLE 66 

Population 66 

Ethnicity 66 

Languages and Dialects 70 

Settlement Patterns 74 

SOCIAL SYSTEM 74 

Traditional Social Patterns and Values 74 

Social Structure under Communist Rule 77 

RELIGION 82 

Before 1944 82 

Hoxha's Antireligious Campaign 85 

The Revival of Religion 87 

EDUCATION 87 

Precommunist Era 87 

Education under Communist Rule 91 

HEALTH AND WELFARE 94 

Medical Care and Nutrition 94 

Housing 96 

Social Insurance 98 

Chapter 3. The Economy 101 

Charles Sudetic 

ECONOMIC POLICY AND PERFORMANCE 105 

The Precommunist Albanian Economy 106 

Imposition of the Stalinist System 107 

Dependence on Yugoslavia, 1945-48 108 

Dependence on the Soviet Union, 1948-60 109 



viii 



Dependence on China, 1961-78 Ill 

Isolation and Autarky 114 

ECONOMIC SYSTEM 118 

Governmental Bodies and Control 118 

Ownership and Private Property 120 

Enterprises and Firms 121 

Finance and Banking 122 

Currency and Monetary Policy 124 

Government Revenues and Expenditures 124 

Savings 125 

WORK FORCE AND STANDARD OF LIVING 126 

Prices and Wages 126 

Domestic Consumption 128 

Standard of Living 128 

Population and Work Force 130 

Women in the Work Force 132 

Trade Unions 132 

AGRICULTURE 133 

The Land 133 

Land Distribution and Agricultural 

Organization 134 

Structure and Marketing of Agricultural Output 136 

Livestock and Pasturelands 137 

Mechanization 138 

Fertilizers, Pesticides, and Seeds 138 

Forests 139 

Fisheries 139 

INDUSTRY 140 

Energy and Natural Resources 140 

Manufacturing 146 

Construction 149 

Environmental Problems 150 

TRANSPORTATION AND COMMUNICATIONS 150 

Road Transportation 151 

Railroads 152 

Air Transportation 152 

Water Transportation 152 

Telecommunications 155 

RETAIL TRADE, SERVICES, AND TOURISM 156 

Re f ail Trade and Services 156 

Black Market 158 

Tourism 158 

FOREIGN ECONOMIC RELATIONS 159 

Foreign Trade Organization 159 



ix 



Foreign Trade Balance and Balance of Payments .... 162 

Trade Partners 162 

Commodity Pattern of Trade 164 

Activities of Foreign Companies in Albania 165 

Foreign Assistance 166 

PROSPECTS FOR REFORM 166 

Chapter 4. Government and Politics 169 

Amy Knight 

ORIGINS OF THE POLITICAL SYSTEM 172 

Albania after World War II 172 

The Hoxha Regime 173 

Alia Takes Over 174 

ALBANIA'S COMMUNIST PARTY 175 

THE GOVERNMENT APPARATUS 178 

People's Assembly 178 

Council of Ministers and People's Councils 178 

Courts 179 

MASS ORGANIZATIONS 179 

Democratic Front 180 

Union of Albanian Working Youth 180 

Union of Albanian Women 181 

United Trade Unions of Albania 181 

MASS MEDIA 181 

REFORM POLITICS 182 

Initial Stages 182 

Human Rights 184 

Further Moves Toward Democracy 185 

Multiparty System 187 

The Coalition Government of 1991 189 

FOREIGN POLICY 191 

Shifting Alliances 192 

Changes in the 1980s 194 

Alia's Pragmatism 195 

Albania Seeks New Allies 197 

Chapter 5. National Security 201 

Karl Wheeler Soper 

DEVELOPMENT OF THE ARMED FORCES 204 

From Independence to World War II 206 

World War II 208 

Postwar Development 209 

EVOLUTION OF NATIONAL SECURITY POLICY 211 



x 



DEFENSE ORGANIZATION 215 

Political Control 217 

People's Army 219 

Military Manpower 223 

Military Budget and the Economy 226 

INTERNAL SECURITY 227 

Domestic Repression under Hoxha and Alia 227 

Security Forces 231 

Appendix. Tables 241 

Bibliography 251 

Glossary 263 

Index 271 

Contributors 285 

List of Figures 

1 Administrative Divisions of Albania, 1992 xxxiv 

2 Illyria under Roman Rule, First Century B.C 6 

3 Topography and Drainage 62 

4 Distribution of Ethnic Albanians on the Balkan 

Peninsula, 1992 70 

5 Population Density by District, 1955 72 

6 Population Density by District, 1988 73 

7 Transportation System, 1992 154 



xi 



Preface 



Preparation of this edition of Albania: A Country Study began as 
popular revolutions were drastically altering the political and eco- 
nomic systems of the communist countries of Eastern Europe. In 
Albania extreme isolation and Stalinist policies slowed, but could 
not stop, the revolution that striking workers and irate citizens 
directed against the regime. In early 1992, the Albanian people 
forced the communist government's fall, ushering in a long-term 
transition from totalitarianism toward democracy and from a cen- 
tralized command economy to one based on a private market. 

The uncertainty of both the process and the outcome of the tran- 
sition make descriptions of the changing structures of government, 
economy, and society somewhat tentative in nature. The authors 
have attempted to describe the existing, but possibly transitional 
structures, using scholarly materials, which even from Western 
sources are very limited. Such descriptions can form a sound basis 
for readers to understand the ongoing events and assess change 
in Albania. The most useful source's are cited by the authors at 
the end of each chapter. Full references to these and other sources 
are listed in the Bibliography. A Country Profile and a Chronology 
are also included in the book as reference aids. 

Transliteration of Albanian personal names and terms generally 
follows the Library of Congress transliteration system. Transliter- 
ation of place-names, however, follows the system developed by 
the United States Board on Geographic Names. In the ecclesiasti- 
cal context, preference is given to the generic term Orthodox, rather 
than Eastern Orthodox. The term Greek Orthodox (like Serbian Orthodox 
or Albanian Orthodox) is used to designate ethnic affiliation, not histor- 
ical background. Measurements are given in the metric system; 
a conversion table is provided to assist readers unfamiliar with that 
system (see table 1, Appendix). 

The body of the text reflects information available as of April 
1992. Certain other portions of the text, however, have been up- 
dated: the Introduction discusses significant events that have oc- 
curred since the information cutoff date; the Chronology and the 
Country Profile include updated information as available; and the 
Bibliography lists recently published sources thought to be particu- 
larly helpful to the reader. 



Xlll 



Table A. Chronology of Important Events 



Period 



Description 



ca.1000 B.C. 

358 B.C. 
312 B.C. 

229 B.C. and 219 B.C. 
165 B.C. 

FIRST CENTURY A.D. 
A.D. 9 

A.D. 395 



FOURTH CENTURY- 
SEVENTH CENTURY 



732 
1054 

1081 

TWELFTH CENTURY 
1204 

1272 
1385 



Illyrians, descendants of ancient Indo-European peo- 
ples, setde in western part of the Balkan Penin- 
sula. 

Illyrians defeated by Philip II of Macedonia. 

King Glaucius of Illyria expels Greeks from Durres. 

Roman soldiers overrun Illyrian setdements in Ne- 
retva River valley. 

Roman forces capture Illyria's King Gentius at Shko- 
der. 

Christianity comes to Illyrian populated areas. 

Romans, under Emperor Tiberius, subjugate Illy- 
rians and divide present-day Albania between Dal- 
matia, Epirus, and Macedonia. 

Roman Empire is division into eastern and western 
parts leaves the lands that now comprise Albania 
administratively under the Eastern Empire but 
ecclesiastically under Rome. 

Goths, Huns, Avars, Serbs, Croats, and Bulgars suc- 
cessively invade Illyrian lands in present-day Al- 
bania. 

Illyrian people subordinated to the patriarchate of 
Constantinople by the Byzantine emperor, Leo 
the Isaurian. 

Christianity divides into Catholic and Orthodox 
churches, leaving Christians in southern Albania 
under ecumenical patriarch of Constantinople and 
those in northern Albania under pope in Rome. 

Albania and Albanians mentioned, for the first time 
in a historical record, by Byzantine emperor. 

Serbs occupy parts of northern and eastern Albania. 

Venice wins control over most of Albania, but Byzan* 
tines regain control of southern portion and estab- 
lish Despotate of Epirus. 

Forces of the King of Naples occupy Durres and es- 
tablish an Albanian kingdom. 

Albanian ruler of Durres invites Ottoman forces to 
intervene against a rival; subsequently, Albanian 
clans pay tribute and swear fealty to Ottomans. 



XV 



Table A. — Continued 



Period 



Description 



1389 



At Kosovo Polje, Albanians join Serbian-led Balkan 
army that is crushed by Ottoman forces; coordi- 
nated resistance to Ottoman westward progress 
evaporates. 



1403 



Gjergj Kastrioti born, later becomes Albanian na- 
tional hero known as Skanderbeg. 



1443 



After losing a battle near Nis, Skanderbeg defects 
from Ottoman Empire, reembraces Roman Cathol- 
icism, and begins holy war against the Ottomans. 



1444 
1449 



Skanderbeg proclaimed chief of Albanian resistance. 

Albanians, under Skanderbeg, rout Ottoman forces 
under Sultan Murad II. 



1468 
1478 



Skanderbeg dies. 

Kruje falls to Ottoman Turks; Shkoder falls a year 
later. Subsequently, many Albanians flee to south- 
ern Italy, Greece, Egypt, and elsewhere; many 
remaining are forced to convert to Islam. 



EARLY SEVENTEENTH 
CENTURY 



Some Albanians who convert to Islam find careers 
in Ottoman Empire's government and military 
service. 



SEVENTEENTH CENTURY- About two-thirds of Albanians convert to Islam. 
EIGHTEENTH CENTURY 



1785 



Kara Mahmud Bushati, chief of Albanian tribe based 
in Shkoder, attacks Montenegrin territory; subse- 
quently named governor of Shkoder by Ottoman 
authorities. 



NINETEENTH AND 

TWENTIETH CENTURIES 



1822 



Albanian leader Ali Pasha of Tepelene assassinated 
by Ottoman agents for promoting an autonomous 
state. 



1830 



1,000 Albanian leaders invited to meet with Ottoman 
general who kills about half of them. 



1835 



Ottoman Sublime Porte divides Albanian-populated 
lands into vilayets of Janina and Rumelia with Ot- 
toman administrators. 



1861 



First school known to use Albanian language in mod- 
ern times opens in Shkoder. 



XVI 



Table A. — Continued 



Period Description 

1877-78 Russia's defeat of Ottoman Empire seriously weakens 

Ottoman power over Albanian-populated areas. 

1878 Treaty of San Stefano, signed after the Russo-Turk- 

ish War, assigned Albanian-populated lands to 
Bulgaria, Montenegro, and Serbia; but Austria- 
Hungary and Britain block the treaty's implemen- 
tation. Albanian leaders meet in Prizren, Kosovo, 
to form the Prizren League, initially advocating a 
unified Albania under Ottoman suzerainty. Congress 
of Berlin overturns the Treaty of San Stefano but 
places some Albanian lands under Montenegrin 
and Serbian rule. The Prizren League begins to 
organize resistance to the Treaty of Berlin's provisions 
that affect Albanians. 



1879 



Society for Printing of Albanian Writings, composed 
of Roman Catholic, Muslim, and Orthodox Al- 
banians, founded in Constantinople. 



1881 



Ottoman forces crush Albanian resistance fighters at 
Prizren. Prizren League's leaders and families ar- 
rested and deported. 



1897 



Ottoman authorities disband a reactivated Prizren 
League, execute its leader later, then ban Albanian 
language books. 



1906 



Albanians begin joining the Committee of Union 
and Progress (Young Turks), which formed in Con- 
stantinople, hoping to gain autonomy for their na- 
tion within the Ottoman Empire. 



1908 



Albanian intellectuals meet in Bitola and choose the 
Latin alphabet as standard script rather than Arabic 
or Cyrillic. 



1912 May 



Albanians rise against the Ottoman authorities and 
seize Skopje. 



October 



First Balkan War begins, and Albanian leaders af- 
firm Albania as an independent state. 



November 



Muslim and Christian delegates at Vlore declare Alba- 
nia independent and establish a provisional gov- 
ernment. 



December 



Ambassadorial conference opens in London and dis- 
cusses Albania's fate. 



1913 May 



Treaty of London ends First Balkan War. Second 
Balkan War begins. 



xvii 



Table A. — Continued 



Period 



Description 



August 
1914 March 

September 

1918 November 

December 

1919 January 
June 

1920 January 

February 

September 

December 

1921 November 



Treaty of Bucharest ends Second Balkan War. Great 
Powers recognize an independent Albanian state 
ruled by a constitutional monarchy. 

Prince Wilhelm, German army captain, installed as 
head of the new Albanian state by the International 
Control Commission, arrives in Albania. 

New Albanian state collapses following outbreak of 
World War I; Prince Wilhelm is stripped of authori- 
ty and departs from Albania. 

World War I ends, with Italian army occupying most 
of Albania and Serbian, Greek, and French force oc- 
cupying remainder. Italian and Yugoslav powers be- 
gin struggle for dominance over Albanians. 

Albanian leaders meet at Durres to discuss presenta- 
tion of Albania's interests at the Paris Peace Con- 
ference. 

Serbs attack Albania's inhabited cities. Albanians adopt 
guerrilla warfare. 

Albania denied official representation at the Paris Peace 
Conference; British, French, and Greek negotiators 
later decide to divide Albania among Greece, Italy, 
and Yugoslavia. 

Albanian leaders meeting at Lushnje* reject the parti- 
tioning of Albania by the Treaty of Paris, warn that 
Albanians will take up arms in defense of their terri- 
tory, and create a bicameral parliament. 

Albanian government moves to Tirane, which becomes 
the capital. 

Albania forces Italy to withdraw its troops and aban- 
don territorial claims to almost all Albanian territory. 

Albania admitted to League of Nations as sovereign and 
independent state. 

Yugoslav troops invade Albanian territories they had 
not previously occupied; League of Nations commis- 
sion forces Yugoslav withdrawal and reaffirms Alba- 
nia's 1913 borders. 



December 



Popular Party, headed by Xhafer Ypi, forms govern- 
ment with Ahmed Zogu, the future King Zog, as in- 
ternal affairs minister. 



1922 August 



Ecumenical patriarch in Constantinople recognizes the 
Autocephalous Albanian Orthodox Church. 



XV111 



Table A. — Continued 



Period 



Description 



September 



Zogu assumes position of prime minister of government; 
opposition to him becomes formidable. 



1923 



Albania's Sunni Muslims break last ties with Constan- 
tinople and pledge primary allegiance to native 
country. 



1924 March 



Zogu's party wins elections for National Assembly, but 
Zogu steps down after financial scandal and an as- 
sassination attempt. 



July 



A peasant-backed insurgency wins control of Tirane; 
Fan S. Noli becomes prime minister; Zogu flees to 
Yugoslavia. 



December 



Zogu, backed by Yugoslav army, returns to power and 
begins to smother parliamentary democracy; Noli 
flees to Italy. 



1925 May 



Italy, under Mussolini, begins penetration of Albani- 
an public and economic life. 



1926 November 



Italy and Albania sign First Treaty of Tirane, which 
guarantees Zogu's political position and Albania's 
boundaries. 



1928 August 



Zogu pressures the parliament to dissolve itself; a new 
constituent assembly declares Albania a kingdom and 
Zogu becomes Zog I, "King of the Albanians." 



1931 



Zog, standing up to Italians, refuses to renew the First 
Treaty of Tirane; Italians continue political and eco- 
nomic pressure. 



1934 



After Albania signs trade agreements with Greece and 
Yugoslavia, Italy suspends economic support, then 
attempts to threaten Albania. 



1935 



Mussolini presents a gift of 3,000,000 gold francs to Al- 
bania; other economic aid follows. 



1939 April 



Mussolini's troops invade and occupy Albania; Alba- 
nian parliament votes to unite country with Italy; Zog 
flees to Greece; Italy's King Victor Emmanual III 
assumes Albanian crown. 



1940 October 

1941 April 



Italian army attacks Greece through Albania. 

Germany, with support of Italy and other allies defeat 
Greece and Yugoslavia. 



XIX 



Table A. — Continued 



Period 



Description 



October 
November 

1942 September 
October 

1943 August 



Josip Broz Tito, Yugoslav communist leader, directs 
organizing of Albanian communists. 

Albanian Communist Party founded; Enver Hoxha be- 
comes first secretary. 

Communist party organizes the National Liberation 
Movement, a popular front resistance organization. 

Noncommunist nationalist groups form to resist the 
Italian occupation. 

Italy's surrender to Allied forces weakens Italian hold 
on Albania; Albanian resistance fighters overwhelm 
five Italian divisions. 



September 
1944 January 

May 



German forces invade and occupy Albania. 

Communist partisans, supplied with British weapons, 
gain control of southern Albania. 

Communists meet to organize an Albanian government; 
Hoxha becomes chairman of executive committee and 
supreme commander of the Army of National 
Liberation. 



July 
October 

November 

December 

1945 January 



April 
August 



Communist forces enter central and northern Albania. 

Communists establish provisional government with 
Hoxha as prime minister. 

Germans withdraw from Tirane, communists move into 
the capital. 

Communist provisional government adopts laws allow- 
ing state regulation of commercial enterprises, for- 
eign and domestic trade. 

Communist provisional government agrees to restore 
Kosovo to Yugoslavia as an autonomous region; 
tribunals begin to condemn thousands of "war crimi- 
nals" and "enemies of the people" to death or to prison. 
Communist regime begins to nationalize industry, trans- 
portation, forests, pastures. 

Yugoslavia recognizes communist government in 
Albania. 

Sweeping agricultural reforms begin; about half of ara- 
ble land eventually redistributed to peasants from 
large landowners; most church properties national- 
ized. United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Ad- 
ministration begins sending supplies to Albania. 



XX 



Table A. — Continued 



Period 



Description 



November 



Soviet Union recognizes provisional government; Brit- 
ain and United States make full diplomatic recogni- 
tion conditional. 



December 



In elections for the People's Assembly only candidates 
from the Democratic Front are on ballot. 



1946 January 



Spring 



July 



People's Assembly proclaims Albania a "people's 
republic"; purges of noncommunists from positions 
of power in government begin. 

People's Assembly adopts new constitution, Hoxha be- 
comes prime minister, foreign minister, defense 
minister, and commander in chief; Soviet-style cen- 
tral planning begins. 

Treaty of friendship and cooperation signed with Yu- 
goslavia; Yugoslav advisers and grain begin pouring 
into Albania. 



October 



November 



British destroyers hit mines off Albania's coast; Unit- 
ed Nations (UN) and the International Court of 
Justice subsequently condemn Albania. 

Albania breaks diplomatic relations with the United 
States after latter withdraws its informal mission. 



1947 April 



May 



July 

1948 February-March 
June 



Economic Planning Commission draws up first econom- 
ic plan that establishes production targets for min- 
ing, manufacturing and agricultural enterprises. 

UN commission concludes that Albania, together with 
Bulgaria and Yugoslavia, supports communist guer- 
rillas in Greece; Yugoslav leaders launch verbal offen- 
sive against anti-Yugoslav Albanian communists, 
including Hoxha; pro- Yugoslav faction begins to 
wield power. 

Albania refuses participation in the Marshall Plan of 
the United States. 

Albanian Communist Party leaders vote to merge Al- 
banian and Yugoslav economies and militaries. 

Cominform expels Yugoslavia; Albanian leaders launch 
anti- Yugoslav propaganda campaign, cut economic 
ties, and force Yugoslav advisers to leave; Stalin be- 
comes national hero in Albania. 



September 



Hoxha begins purging high-ranking party members ac- 
cused of "Titoism"; treaty of friendship with Yugo- 
slavia abrogated by Albania; Soviet Union begins 
giving economic aid to Albania and Soviet advisers 
replace ousted Yugoslavs. 



XXI 



Table A. — Continued 



Period 



Description 



November 

1949 January 
February 



First Party Congress changes name of Albanian Com- 
munist Party to Albanian Party of Labor. 

Regime issues Decree on Religious Communities. 

Albania joins Council for Mutual Economic Assistance 
(Comecon); all foreign trade conducted with mem- 
ber countries. 



1950 



December 



Pro-Tito Albanian communists purged. 

Britain and United States begin inserting anticom- 
munist Albanian guerrilla units into Albania; all are 
unsuccessful. 



July 



A new constitution is approved by People's Assembly. 
Hoxha becomes minister of defense and foreign 
minister. 



1951 February 

1954 July 

1955 May 

1956 February 



Albania and Soviet Union sign agreement on mutual 
economic assistance. 

Hoxha relinquishes post of prime minister to Mehmet 
Shehu but retains primary power as party leader. 

Albania becomes a founding member of the Warsaw 
Pact. 

After Nikita Khrushchev's "secret speech" exposes Sta- 
lin's crimes, Hoxha defends Stalin; close relations with 
Soviet Union become strained. 



1959 



Large amounts of economic aid from Soviet Union, East 
European countries, and China begin pouring into 
Albania. 



May 
1960 June 



November 



1961 February 



December 



Khrushchev visits Albania. 

Albania sides with China in Sino-Soviet ideological dis- 
pute; consequendy, Soviet economic support to Al- 
bania is curtailed and Chinese aid is increased. 

Hoxha rails against Khrushchev and supports China 
during an international communist conference in 
Moscow. 

Hoxha harangues against the Soviet Union and Yugo- 
slavia at Albania's Fourth Party Congress. 

Soviet Union breaks diplomatic relations; other East 
European countries severely reduce contacts but do 
not break relations; Albania looks toward China for 
support. 



XXII 



Table A. — Continued 



Period 



Description 



1962 



Albanian regime introduces austerity program in at- 
tempt to compensate for withdrawal of Soviet eco- 
nomic support; China incapable of delivering 
sufficient aid; Albania becomes China's spokesman 
at UN. 



1964 

1966 February 
March 



Hoxha hails Khrushchev's removal as leader of the 
Soviet Union; diplomatic relations fail to improve. 

Hoxha initiates Cultural and Ideological Revolution. 

Albanian Party of Labor "open letter" to the people 
establishes egalitarian wage and job structure for all 
workers. 



1967 



Hoxha regime conducts violent campaign to extinguish 
religious life in Albania; by year's end over two thou- 
sand religious buildings were closed or converted to 
other uses. * 



1968 



1976 



1977 



August 

September 

December 



1978 July 



Albania condemns Soviet-led invasion of Czechoslovakia; 
subsequently, Albania withdraws from Warsaw Pact. 

Hoxha begins criticizing new Chinese regime after Mao's 
death. 

A new constitution promulgated superceeding the 1950 
version; Albania becomes a people's socialist republic. 

Top military officials purged after "Chinese conspira- 
cy" is uncovered. 

China terminates all economic and military aid to 
Albania. 



1980 



1981 December 



Hoxha selects Ramiz Alia as the next party head, bypass- 
ing Shehu. 

Shehu, after rebuke by Politburo, dies, possibly mur- 
dered on Hoxha' s orders. 



1982 November 



Alia becomes chairman of Presidium of the People's As- 
sembly. 



1983 



Hoxha begins semiretirement; Alia starts administering 
Albania. 



1985 
1986 



April 

November 



Hoxha dies. 

Alia featured as party's and country's undisputed lead- 
er at Ninth Party Congress. 



1987 August 



Greece ends state of war that existed since World War II. 



xxiii 



Table A. — Continued 



Period 



Description 



November 



Albania and Greece sign a series of long-term agree- 
ments. 



1989 September 



Alia, addressing the Eighth Plenum of the Central Com- 
mittee, signals that radical changes to the economic 
system are necessary. 



1990 January 



Ninth Plenum of the Central Committee; demonstra- 
tions at Shkoder force authorities to declare state of 
emergency. 



April 



Alia declares willingness to establish diplomatic rela- 
tions with the Soviet Union and the United States. 



May 
May 



The Secretary General of the UN visits Albania. 

Regime announces desire to join the Conference on 
Security and Cooperation in Europe. People's As- 
sembly passes laws liberalizing criminal code, reform- 
ing court system, lifting some restrictions on freedom 
of worship, and guaranteeing the right to travel 
abroad. 



Summer 



Unemployment throughout the economy increases as 
a result of government's reform measures; drought 
reduces electric-power production, forcing plant 
shutdowns. 



July 



Young people demonstrate against regime in Tirane, 
and 5,000 citizens seek refuge in foreign embassies; 
Central Committee plenum makes significant changes 
in leadership of party and state. Soviet Union and 
Albania sign protocol normalizing relations. 



August 



Government abandons its monopoly on foreign com- 
merce and begins to open Albania to foreign trade. 



September 
October 



Alia addresses the UN General Assembly in New York. 

Tirane hosts the Balkan Foreign Ministers' Conference, 
the first international political meeting in Albania 
since the end of World War II. Ismail Kadare, Al- 
bania's most prominent writer, defects to France. 



December 



University students demonstrate in streets and call for 
dictatorship to end; Alia meets with students; Thir- 
teenth Plenum of the Central Committee of the APL 
authorizes a multiparty system; Albanian Democratic 
Party, first opposition party established; regime 
authorizes political pluralism; draft constitution is 
published; by year's end, 5,000 Albanian refugees 
had crossed the mountains into Greece. 



XXIV 



Table A. — Continued 



Period 



Description 



1991 January 



First opposition newspaper Rilindja Demokratike begins 
publishing. Thousands of Albanians seek refuge in 
Greece. 



March 



Albania and the United States reestablish diplomatic 
relations after a thirty-five-year break. Thousands 
more Albanians attempt to gain asylum in Italy. 



March-April 



First multiparty elections held since the 1920s; 98.9 per- 
cent of voters participate; Albanian Party of Labor 
wins over 67 percent of vote for People's Assembly 
seats; Albanian Democratic Party wins about 30 
percent. 



April 



Communist-dominated People's Assembly reelects Alia 
to new presidential term. Ministry of Internal Affairs 
replaced by Ministry of Public Order; Frontier 
Guards and Directorate of Prison Administration are 
placed under the Ministry of Defense and the Minis- 
try of Justice, respectively. People's Assembly pass- 
es Law on Major Constitutional Provisions providing 
for fundamental human rights and separation of pow- 
ers and invalidates 1976 constitution. People's As- 
sembly appoints commission to draft new constitution. 



Prime Minister Nano and rest of cabinet resign after 
trade unions call for general strike to protest worsen- 
ing economic conditions and killing of opposition dem- 
onstrators in Shkoder. Coalition government led by 
Prime Minister Ylli Bufi takes office; Tenth Party Con- 
gress of the Albanian Party of Labor meets and re- 
names party the Socialist Party of Albania (SPA); 
Albania accepted as a full member of CSC E; United 
States secretary of state, James A. Baker, visits Albania. 



July 

August 



Sigurimi, notorious secret police, is abolished and 
replaced by National Information Service. 

Up to 18,000 Albanians cross the Adriatic Sea to seek 
asylum in Italy; most are returned. People's Assem- 
bly passes law on economic activity that authorizes 
private ownership of property, privatizing of state 
property, investment by foreigners, and private em- 
ployment of workers. 



October 



United States Embassy opens in Tirane. Albania joins 
International Monetary Fund. 



December 



Coalition government dissolves when opposition par- 
ties accuse communists of blocking reform and Al- 
banian Democratic Party withdraws its ministers from 
the cabinet. Prime Minister Bufi resigns and Alia 
names Vilson Ahmeti as prime minister. Alia sets 
March 1992 for new elections. 



XXV 



Table A. — Continued 



Period 



Description 



1992 February 

March 

April 
June 

July 

September 

December 

1993 March 
April 
May 

July 

September 



October 



November 



Albanian People's Assembly prevents OMONIA, the 
party representing Greek Albanians, from fielding 
candidates in the elections planned for March. 

Albanian Democratic Party scores decisive election vic- 
tory over the Socialist Party of Albania in the midst 
of economic freefall and social chaos. 

Sali Berisha, a leader of the Albanian Democratic Party, 
elected president. 

Albania signs Black Sea economic cooperation pact with 
ten other countries, including six former Soviet 
republics. 

Socialist Party of Albania gains significantly in nation- 
wide local elections. 

Former President Alia and eighteen other former com- 
munist officials, including Nexhmije Hoxha, arrest- 
ed and charged with corruption and other offenses. 

Albania joins the Organization of the Islamic Con- 
ference. 

Secretary General of the North Atlantic Treaty Organi- 
zation (NATO) visits Tirane. 

Albania recognizes the former Yugoslav Republic of 
Macedonia. 

President Berisha urges NATO to intervene militarily 
in Kosovo. 

Fatos Nano, chairman of the Socialist Party of Alba- 
nia and former prime minister, arrested and charged 
with corruption. 

President Berisha and President Momir Bulatovic of 
Montenegro meet in Tirane to discuss ways of im- 
proving Albanian-Montenegrin relations. 

Socialist Party of Albania loses many votes to Albanian 
Democratic Party in local elections in Dibre district. 

Greece recalls its ambassador for consultations after se- 
ries of border incidents and alleged human rights 
abuses in Albania. 

Israel's foreign minister makes first official visit to 
Tirane. 



XXVI 



Country Profile 




Country 

Formal Name: Republic of Albania. 
Short Form: Albania. 
Term for Citizens: Albanian(s). 
Capital: Tirane. 

Date of Independence: November 28, 1912, national holiday 
celebrated as Liberation Day. 

NOTE — The Country Profile contains updated information as available. 



xxvii 



Geography 

Size: 28,750 square kilometers (land area 27,400 square kilome- 
ters); slightly larger than Maryland. 

Location: Southeastern coast of Adriatic Sea and eastern part of 
Strait of Otranto, opposite heel of Italian boot; between approxi- 
mately 40° and 43° north latitude. 

Topography: A little over 20 percent coastal plain, some of it poorly 
drained. Mostly hills and mountains, often covered with scrub 
forest. Only navigable river is the Bune. 

Climate: Mild temperate; cool, cloudy, wet winters with January 
low of 5°C; hot, clear, dry summers with July high of 28°C; in- 
terior cooler and wetter. 

Boundaries: Land boundaries total 720 kilometers; borders with 
Greece 282 kilometers; border with former Yugoslav Republic of 
Macedonia 151 kilometers; border with Serbia 114 kilometers; bor- 
der with Montengro 173 kilometers; coastline 362 kilometers. 

Society 

Population: 3,335,000 (July 1991), growth rate 1.8 percent (1991). 
Birth rate 24 per 1 ,000 population, death rate 5 per 1 ,000 popula- 
tion. Total fertility rate 2.9 children per woman. Infant mortality 
rate 50 deaths per 1,000 live births. Life expectancy at birth 72 
years for males, 79 years for females. 

Ethnic Groups: Albanian 90 percent, divided into two groups: the 
Gegs to the north of the Shkumbin River and the Tosks to the south. 
Greeks probably 8 percent, others (mostly Vlachs, Gypsies, Serbs 
and Bulgarians) about 2 percent. 

Languages: Albanian (Tosk official dialect, Geg also much-used 
variant), Greek. 

Religion: In 1992, estimated 70 percent of people Muslim, 20 per- 
cent Orthodox, and 10 percent Roman Catholic. In 1967 all 
mosques and churches closed and religious observances prohibit- 
ed; in December 1990, ban on religious observance lifted. 

Education: Free at all levels. Eight-grade primary and intermediate 
levels compulsory beginning at age six. Literacy rate raised from 
about 20 percent in 1945 to estimated 75 percent in recent years. 
In 1990, primary school attended by 96 percent of all school-age 
children, and secondary school by 70 percent. School operations 
seriously disrupted by breakdown of public order in 1991. 



xxvin 



Health and Welfare: All medical services free. Six months of 
maternity leave at approximately 85 percent salary; noncontribu- 
tory state social insurance system for all workers, with 70-100 per- 
cent of salary during sick leave. Pension about 70 percent of average 
salary. Retirement age 50-60 for men, 45-55 for women. In early 
1990s, health and welfare system adversely affected by economic 
and social disintegration. 

Economy 

Salient Features: Until 1991, centrally planned Stalinist economy. 
Economic reforms crippled by economic and social disintegration 
in early 1990s. In 1992, new Democratic government announced 
"shock therapy" program to establish a market economy. 

Gross Domestic Product (GDP): L16,234 million in 1990, US$450 
per capita, drop of 13.1 percent from previous year; preliminary 
figures indicated 30 percent drop for 1991.' 

Gross National Product (GNP): Estimated at US$4.1 billion in 
1990; per capita income estimated in range US$600-US$1 ,250; 
real growth rate not available. 

Government Budget: Revenues US$2.3 billion; expenditures 
US$2.3 billion (1989). Note: Albania perennially ran substantial 
trade deficit; government tied imports to exports, so deficit seems 
to have been greatly reduced if not eliminated. 

Labor Force: 1,567,000 (1990); agriculture about 52 percent, in- 
dustry 22.9 percent (1987). Females made up 48.1 percent of labor 
force in 1990. 

Agriculture: Arable land per capita lowest in Europe. Self-suffi- 
ciency in grain production achieved in 1976, according to govern- 
ment figures. A wide variety of temperate-zone crops and livestock 
raised. Up to 1990, Albania largely self-sufficient in food; there- 
after drought and political breakdown necessitated foreign food aid. 

Land Use: Arable land 21 percent; permanent crops 4 percent; 
meadows and pastures 15 percent; forest and woodland 38 per- 
cent; other 22 percent. 

Industry: Main industries in early 1990s: food products, energy 
and petroleum, mining and basic metals, textiles and clothing, lum- 
ber, cement, engineering, and chemicals. 

Natural Resources: Chromium, coal, copper, natural gas, nickel, 
oil, timber. 



XXIX 



Imports: US$255 million (1987 estimate). Major commodities: 
machinery, machine tools, iron and steel products, textiles, chem- 
icals, and pharmaceuticals. 

Exports: US$378 million (1987 estimate). Major commodities: 
asphalt, bitumen, petroleum products, metals and metallic ores, 
electricity, oil, vegetables, fruits, tobacco. 

Trading Partners: Italy, Yugoslavia, Germany, Greece, East Eu- 
ropean countries, and China. 

Economic aid: In fiscal year 1991, United States government 
provided US$2.4 million; the European Community (EC) pledged 
US$9.1 million; and Italy provided US$196 million for emergen- 
cy food aid, industrial inputs, and education system. In July 1991, 
EC enrolled Albania in its program for technical assistance to former 
communist countries. 

Currency: Lek (pi., leke); exchange rate in March 1993 LI 09. 62 
per US$1. 

Fiscal year: calendar year. 

Transportation and Communications 

Roads: Between 16,000 and 21,000 kilometers of road network 
suitable for motor traffic; 6,700 kilometers of main roads. In the 
mountainous north, communications still mostly by pack ponies 
or donkeys. Private cars not permitted until second half of 1990; 
bicycles and mules widely used. 

Railroads: Total of 543 kilometers, all single track, 509 kilome- 
ters in 1.435-meter standard gauge; thirty-four kilometers in nar- 
row gauge. Work on Yugoslav section of fifty-kilometer line between 
Shkoder and Titograd completed in late 1985; line opened to freight 
traffic in September 1986. 

Aviation: Scheduled flights from Rinas Airport, twenty-eight kilo- 
meters from Tirane to many major European cities. No regular 
internal air service. 

Shipping: In 1986 Albania had twenty merchant ships, with total dis- 
placement of about 56,000 gross tons. Main ports: Durres, Vlore, 
Sarande and Shengjin. Completion of the new port near Vlore by 
early 1990s will allow cargo-handling capacity of 4 million tons per 
year. 



xxx 



Politics and Government 



Political Parties: Albanian Party of Labor (APL), the communist 
party, became Socialist Party of Albania in 1991. Other parties 
allowed to form December 1990, including Albanian Democratic 
Party, Republican Party, Ecology Party, OMONIA (Unity— Greek 
minority party). 

Government: Until April 1991, single-chamber People's Assem- 
bly with 250 deputies met only few days each year; decisions made 
by Presidium of the People's Assembly, whose president head of 
state, and Council of Ministers; from April 1991, interim consti- 
tution provided for president who could not hold other offices con- 
currently; People's Assembly with at least 140 members legislative 
organ; Council of Ministers top executive organ. 

Ministries: As of August 1993: agriculture; construction, hous- 
ing, and land; culture, youth, and sports; defense; economy and 
finance; education; foreign affairs; health, and environment; in- 
dustry, mining, and energy; justice; labor, emigration, social as- 
sistance, and political prisoners; public order; tourism; trade and 
foreign economic relations; and transport and communications. 

Administrative Divisions: Country divided into twenty- six dis- 
tricts, each under People's Council elected every three years. 

Judicial System: Supreme Court, elected by People's Assembly, 
also district and regional courts. 

Flag: Black, two-headed eagle centered on red field. 

National Security 

Armed Forces: In 1991 People's Army included ground forces, 
air and air defense forces, and naval forces and comprised about 
48,000 active-duty and 155,000 reserve personnel. 

Ground Forces: Numbered about 35,000, including 20,000 con- 
scripts. Organized along Soviet lines into four infantry brigades, 
one tank brigade, three artillery regiments, and six coastal artillery 
battalions. Tanks numbered about 190 and were old, Soviet- type 
T-34 and T-54s. Artillery mixture of outdated Soviet and Chinese 
origin equipment and consisted of towed artillery, mortars, multi- 
ple rocket launchers, and antitank guns. Infantry brigades oper- 
ated 130 armored personnel carriers. 

Air and Air Defense Forces: About 11,000 members, majority 
of whose officers assigned to air defense units, which also had about 



xxxi 



1,400 conscripts assigned. Combat aircraft, supplied by China in 
the 1960s and early 1990s, numbered less than 100. Air Forces or- 
ganized into three squadrons of fighter-bombers, three squadrons 
of fighters, two squadrons of transports, and two squadrons of un- 
armed helicopters. Air Defense Forces manned about twenty-two 
Soviet-made SA-2s at four sites. 

Naval Forces: About 2,000 members, of which 1,000 conscripts, 
organized into two coastal defense brigades. Thirty-seven patrol 
and coastal combatants, most of which torpedo craft of Chinese 
origin. Two Soviet-made Whiskey-class submarines. One mine- 
warfare craft of Soviet origin. 

Defense Budget: In 1991 about LI billion or about 5 percent of 
gross national product and 10 percent of total government spending. 

Internal Security Forces: In 1989 about 5,000 uniformed inter- 
nal security troops, organized into five regiments of mechanized 
infantry, and another 5,000 plain-clothed officers. In July 1991 re- 
organized by People's Assembly. 

Frontier Guards: About 7,000 members organized into several 
battalion-sized units. 



xxxn 



r 
1 

? 



I 



^Xssll " 20 Boundary representation 21 

not necessarily authoritative 

YUGOSLAVIA 

' S/Jr J ~\Bajram Curri < 

\ ,. C\ h ^ TROPOJE 

~\ N. ■. \Shkoder ( 
I V^J „ f'-' Puke 




• MIRDITE, V \ r^T 



Rreshen ■«/. 



■) MAT / Peshtop, ^ 

Su " e) ) ^'YUGOSLAVIA 



Adriatic / <r v1 



5ea 



7/rane ~- / i J 

/ / Librazhd \ 



International boundary 
District boundary 
National capital 
District center 



25 Kilometers 
25 Mile 




Strait 
of Otranto 



Figure 1. Administrative Divisions of Albania, 1992 



xxx iv 



government of nonparty members and specialists headed by Vil- 
son Ahmeti struggled on until the ADP scored a decisive election 
victory on March 22, 1992, amidst economic free-fall and social 
chaos, receiving about 62 percent of the vote to the SPA's 26 per- 
cent. Alia resigned as president shortly afterward, paving the way 
for the ADP to take over the government. On April 9, Sali Berisha, 
a cardiologist by training and a dynamic ADP leader who had 
figured prominentiy in the struggle for political pluralism, was elect- 
ed by the People's Assembly to the post of president. The first pos 
communist government, headed by ADP founding memf 
Aleksander Meksi, was appointed four days later. This "cab. ^et 
of hope," as it was popularly dubbed, consisted mainly of young 
ADP activists, intellectuals without prior government experience. 
Unlike their communist predecessors, most of whom were of 
southern Albanian origin, the ministers hailed from various parts 
of the country. 

The new government made remarkable progress in restoring law 
and order, reforming the economy, and raising the population's 
standard of living. It privatized small businesses, closed down un- 
profitable industrial facilities, distributed about 90 percent of the 
land previously held by collective farms to private farmers, began 
to privatize housing, improved the supply of food and basic con- 
sumer goods, reduced the rate of inflation, stabilized the lek (Al- 
bania's currency unit), cut the budget deficit, and increased the 
volume of exports. However, more than one year after the 
Democrats came to power, Albania's economic plight was far from 
over. Its 400,000 newly registered private farmers had yet to as- 
sume full ownership rights over their land, there was insufficient 
investment in private agriculture, and shortages of tractors and other 
farming equipment continued to impede agricultural production. 
Approximately forty percent of the nonagricultural labor force was 
unemployed, corruption pervaded the state bureaucracy, and the 
country remained dependent on foreign food aid. In addition, partly 
because of the general political instability in the Balkans, particu- 
larly in the former Yugoslavia (see Glossary), direct investment 
from abroad was not forthcoming. Although President Berisha' s 
"shock therapy" received the imprimatur of the International 
Monetary Fund (IMF — see Glossary), it drew sharp criticism from 
the SPA, which had been resuscitated by significant gains in the 
July 1992 local elections. The SPA argued that the reforms should 
have been implemented gradually, that many more jobs had been 
eliminated than created, and that at least some of the old state-run 
factories should have been kept open. 



xxxvi 



In March 1993, SPA chairman Fatos Nano called on the entire 
cabinet to resign, accusing it of incompetence. On April 6, Presi- 
dent Berisha, citing a need to ' 'correct weaknesses and shortcom- 
ings" in the government's reform efforts, replaced the ministers 
of agriculture, internal affairs, education, and tourism (although 
ADP chairman Eduard Selami denied that these changes had been 
made in response to the opposition's demands). The new appoin- 
tees included individuals with greater professional expertise and 
two political independents. The outgoing ministers of agriculture 
and internal affairs assumed other government posts. Despite the 
Socialist challenge, opposition from right-wing extremists, and some 
manifestations of discord within the ADP, the Democratic govern- 
ment remained in a strong position in late 1993. 

In foreign policy, the unresolved question of the status of Koso- 
vo, a formerly autonomous province of Serbia, predominated. 
Although in September 1991 Kosovo's underground parliament 
proclaimed this enclave with its large majority of ethnic Albani- 
ans a ' 1 sovereign and independent state," Albania was the only 
country that had officially recognized Kosovo's independence from 
Serbia. The Serbian government carried out a policy of systemat- 
ic segregation and repression in Kosovo that some Western ob- 
servers have compared with South Africa's apartheid system. 
Concerned that Serbia's ethnic cleansing campaigns would spread 
from Bosnia and Hercegovina to Kosovo and that Albania could 
be dragged into the ensuing confrontation (potentially a general 
Balkan war), President Berisha forged closer relations with other 
Islamic countries, particularly Turkey. In December 1992, Alba- 
nia joined the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC), a 
move denounced by the SPA as a detriment to the country's rein- 
tegration with Europe. But Berisha also sought ties to the North 
Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and urged repeatedly that 
NATO forces be deployed in Kosovo. In March 1993, NATO 
secretary general Manfred Worner visited Tirane, and later that 
month Albanian defense minister Safet Zhulali participated in a 
meeting of the North Atlantic Cooperation Council in Brussels. 
Worner offered various forms of technical assistance to the Alba- 
nian armed forces, although membership in NATO itself was 
withheld. 

In April 1993, Albania granted recognition to the former Yu- 
goslav Republic of Macedonia. Important factors in relations be- 
tween the two countries were the human rights of the Albanian 
minority in Macedonia, estimated to amount to between a fifth 
and a third of the population, and possible Albanian irredentism. 



xxxvii 



Relations benefited from the inclusion of ethnic Albanians in the 
Macedonian government. Good relations were maintained with 
Slovenia, Croatia, Italy, Bulgaria, and Romania as well, and steps 
were taken to improve relations with the neighboring Republic of 
Montenegro, also home to a large minority Albanian community. 
In September, Montenegro's president, Momir Bulatovic, met with 
President Berisha in Tirane for the highest level talks between the 
two countries in a half-century. Attempts to expand cooperation 
and exchanges with Montenegro, however, were hampered by a 
United Nations embargo against the rump Yugoslavia. 

Relations with Greece, Albania's ancient southern neighbor 
(which, for religious and historical reasons, was expected to side 
with Serbia in the event of war in Kosovo), deteriorated rapidly 
in the early 1990s. The tension stemmed primarily from two is- 
sues: the influx of hundreds of thousands of illegal aliens, mostly 
economic immigrants, from Albania to Greece, and the treatment 
of ethnic Greeks in Albania. Greco- Albanian relations worsened 
markedly when the Albanian parliament voted in February 1992 
to prevent OMONIA (Unity), the political party representing Greek 
Albanians, from fielding candidates in the March 1992 election. 
A compromise was reached, permitting OMONIA' s members to 
register under the name of the Union for Human Rights and to 
have their representatives included among the candidates, but 
mutual recriminations persisted. Another major setback occurred 
in June 1993 when Albania expelled a Greek Orthodox priest for 
allegedly fomenting unrest among ethnic Greeks in southern Al- 
bania, and Greece retaliated by deporting 25,000 Albanian illegal 
immigrants. Several weeks later Greece's prime minister, Constan- 
tinos Mitsotakis, demanded "the same rights for the Greek com- 
munity living in Albania as those that the Albanian government 
demands for the Albanian communities in the former Yugoslavia. ' ' 
A potential problem was posed also by the status of "Northern Epi- 
rus," the Greek-populated region in southern Albania on which 
Greece had made territorial claims in the past. The regional in- 
stability created by such ethnic tensions, combined with contin- 
ued economic deprivation, threatened Albania's transition to 
democracy. 



January 1, 1994 Walter R. Iwaskiw 



xxxvin 



Skanderbeg, Albanian national hero of the fifteenth century 



' 'THE ALBANIAN PEOPLE have hacked their way through his- 
tory, sword in hand," proclaims the preamble to Albania's 1976 
Stalinist constitution. These words were penned by the most 
dominant figure in Albania's modern history, the Orwellian post- 
war despot, Enver Hoxha. The fact that Hoxha enshrined them 
in Albania's supreme law is indicative of how he — like his men- 
tor, the Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin — exploited his people's col- 
lective memory to enhance the might of the communist system, 
which he manipulated for over four decades. Supported by a group 
of sycophantic intellectuals, Hoxha repeatedly transformed friends 
into hated foes in his determination to shape events. Similarly, he 
rewrote Albania's history so that national heroes were recast, some- 
times overnight, as villains. Hoxha appealed to the Albanians' 
xenophobia and their defensive nationalism to parry criticism and 
threats to communist central control and his regime and to justify its 
brutal, arbitrary rule and economic and social folly. Only Hoxha' s 
death, the timely downfall of communism in Eastern Europe at 
the end of the 1980s, and the collapse of the nation's economy were 
enough to break his spell and propel Albania fitfully toward change. 

The Albanians are probably an ethnic outcropping of the Illyri- 
ans, an ancient Balkan people who intermingled and made war 
with the Greeks, Thracians, and Macedonians before succumb- 
ing to Roman rule around the time of Christ. Eastern and Western 
powers, secular and religious, battled for centuries after the fall 
of Rome to control the lands that constitute modern-day Albania. 
All the Illyrian tribes except the Albanians disappeared during the 
Dark Ages under the waves of migrating barbarians. A forbidding 
mountain homeland and resilient tribal society enabled the Alba- 
nians to survive into modern times with their identity and their 
Indo-European language intact. 

In the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, the Ottoman Turks 
swept into the western Balkans. After a quixotic defense mounted 
by the Albanians' greatest hero, Skanderbeg, the Albanians suc- 
cumbed to the Turkish sultan's forces. During five centuries of Ot- 
toman rule, about two-thirds of the Albanian population, including 
its most powerful feudal landowners, converted to Islam. Many 
Albanians won fame and fortune as soldiers, administrators, and 
merchants in far-flung parts of the empire. As the centuries passed, 
however, Ottoman rulers lost the capacity to command the loyalty 
of local pashas, who governed districts on the empire's fringes. Soon 



3 



Albania: A Country Study 



pressures created by emerging national movements among the em- 
pire's farrago of peoples threatened to shatter the empire itself. The 
Ottoman rulers of the nineteenth century struggled in vain to shore 
up central authority, introducing reforms aimed at harnessing un- 
ruly pashas and checking the spread of nationalist ideas. 

Albanian nationalism stirred for the first time in the late 
nineteenth century when it appeared that Serbia, Montenegro, 
Bulgaria, and Greece would snatch up the Ottoman Empire's 
Albanian-populated lands. In 1878 Albanian leaders organized the 
Prizren League, which pressed for autonomy within the empire. 
After decades of unrest and the Ottoman Empire's defeat in the 
First Balkan War in 1912-13, Albanian leaders declared Albania 
an independent state, and Europe's Great Powers carved out an 
independent Albania after the Second Balkan War of 1913. 

With the complete collapse of the Ottoman and Austro- 
Hungarian empires after World War I, the Albanians looked to 
Italy for protection against predators. After 1925, however, Mus- 
solini sought to dominate Albania. In 1928 Albania became a king- 
dom under Zog I, the conservative Muslim clan chief and former 
prime minister, but Zog failed to stave off Italian ascendancy in 
Albanian internal affairs. In 1939 Mussolini's troops occupied Al- 
bania, overthrew Zog, and annexed the country. Albanian com- 
munists and nationalists fought each other as well as the occupying 
Italian and German forces during World War II, and with Yu- 
goslav and Allied assistance the communists triumphed. 

After the war, communist strongmen Enver Hoxha and Meh- 
met Shehu eliminated their rivals inside the communist party and 
liquidated anticommunist opposition. Concentrating primarily on 
maintaining their grip on power, they reorganized the country's 
economy along strict Stalinist lines, turning first to Yugoslavia, 
then to the Soviet Union, and later to China for support. In pur- 
suit of their goals, the communists repressed the Albanian people, 
subjecting them to isolation, propaganda, and brutal police mea- 
sures. When China opened up to the West in the 1970s, Albania's 
rulers turned away from Beijing and implemented a policy of strict 
autarky, or self-sufficiency, that brought their nation economic ruin. 

The Ancient lllyrians 

Mystery enshrouds the exact origins of today's Albanians. Most 
historians of the Balkans believe that the Albanian people are in 
large part descendants of the ancient lllyrians, who, like other 
Balkan peoples, were subdivided into tribes and clans. The name 
Albania is derived from the name of an Illyrian tribe called the 
Arber, or Arbereshe, and later Albanoi, that lived near Durres. 



4 



Historical Setting 



The Illyrians were Indo-European tribesmen who appeared in the 
western part of the Balkan Peninsula about 1000 B.C., a period 
coinciding with the end of the Bronze Age and the beginning of 
the Iron Age. They inhabited much of the area for at least the next 
millennium. Archaeologists associate the Illyrians with the Hall- 
statt culture, an Iron Age people noted for production of iron and 
bronze swords with winged- shaped handles and for domestication 
of horses. The Illyrians occupied lands extending from the Danube, 
Sava, and Morava rivers to the Adriatic Sea and the Sar Moun- 
tains. At various times, groups of Illyrians migrated over land and 
sea into Italy. 

The Illyrians carried on commerce and warfare with their neigh- 
bors. The ancient Macedonians probably had some Illyrian roots, 
but their ruling class adopted Greek cultural characteristics. The 
Illyrians also mingled with the Thracians, another ancient people 
with adjoining lands on the east. In the south and along the Adri- 
atic Sea coast, the Illyrians were heavily influenced by the Greeks, 
who founded trading colonies there. The present-day city of Durres 
(Dyrrachium) evolved from a Greek colony known as Epidamnos, 
which was founded at the end of the seventh century B.C. Another 
famous Greek colony, Apollonia, arose between Durres and the 
port city of Vlore. 

The Illyrians produced and traded catde, horses, agricultural 
goods, and wares fashioned from locally mined copper and iron. 
Feuds and warfare were constant facts of life for the Illyrian tribes, 
and Illyrian pirates plagued shipping on the Adriatic Sea. Coun- 
cils of elders chose the chieftains who headed each of the numer- 
ous Illyrian tribes. From time to time, local chieftains extended 
their rule over other tribes and formed short-lived kingdoms. During 
the fifth century B.C. , a well-developed Illyrian population center 
existed as far north as the upper Sava River valley in what is now 
Slovenia. Illyrian friezes discovered near the present-day Sloveni- 
an city of Ljubljana depict ritual sacrifices, feasts, battles, sport- 
ing events, and other activities. 

The Illyrian kingdom of Bardhyllus became a formidable local 
power in the fourth century B.C. In 358 B.C., however, Macedo- 
nia's Philip II, father of Alexander the Great, defeated the Illyri- 
ans and assumed control of their territory as far as Lake Ohrid 
(see fig. 1). Alexander himself routed the forces of the Illyrian chief- 
tain Clitus in 335 B.C., and Illyrian tribal leaders and soldiers ac- 
companied Alexander on his conquest of Persia. After Alexander's 
death in 323 B.C., independent Illyrian kingdoms again arose. In 
312 B.C., King Glaucius expelled the Greeks from Durres. By the 
end of the third century, an Illyrian kingdom based near what is 



5 



Albania: A Country Study 




Source: Based on information from R. Ernest Dupuy and Trevor N. Dupuy, The Ency- 
clopedia of Military History, New York, 1970, 95; Hermann Kinder and Werner Hil- 
gemann, The Anchor Atlas of World History, 1, New York, 1974, 90, 94; and 
Encyclopaedia Britannica, 15, New York, 1975, 1092. 

Figure 2. Illyria under Roman Rule, First Century B. C 

now the Albanian city of Shkoder controlled parts of northern Al- 
bania, Montenegro, and Hercegovina. Under Queen Teuta, Illyri- 
ans attacked Roman merchant vessels plying the Adriatic Sea and 
gave Rome an excuse to invade the Balkans. 

In the Illyrian Wars of 229 and 219 B.C., Rome overran the 
Illyrian setdements in the Neretva River valley. The Romans made 
new gains in 168 B.C., and Roman forces captured Illyria' s King 
Gentius at Shkoder, which they called Scodra, and brought him 
to Rome in 165 B.C. A century later, Julius Caesar and his rival 
Pompey fought their decisive battle near Durres. In A.D. 9, dur- 
ing the reign of Emperor Tiberius, Rome finally subjugated recal- 
citrant Illyrian tribes in the western Balkans. The Romans divided 
the lands that make up present-day Albania among the provinces 
of Macedonia, Dalmatia, and Epirus (see fig. 2). 

For about four centuries, Roman rule brought the Illyrian- 
populated lands economic and cultural advancement and ended 
most of the clashes among local tribes. The Illyrian mountain 



6 



Historical Setting 



clansmen retained local authority but pledged allegiance to the em- 
peror and acknowledged the authority of his envoys. During a yearly 
holiday honoring the Caesars, the Illyrian mountaineers swore 
loyalty to the emperor and reaffirmed their political rights. A form 
of this tradition, known as the kuvend, has survived to the present 
day in northern Albania. 

The Romans established numerous military camps and colonies 
and completely latinized the coastal cities. They also oversaw the 
construction of aqueducts and roads, including the Via Egnatia, 
a famous military highway and trade route that led from Durres 
through the Shkumbin River valley to Macedonia and Byzantium 
(later Constantinople — see Glossary). Copper, asphalt, and silver 
were extracted from the mountains. The main exports were wine, 
cheese, and oil, as well as fish from Lake Scutari and Lake Ohrid. 
Imports included tools, metalware, luxury goods, and other 
manufactured articles. Apollonia became a cultural center, and 
Julius Caesar himself sent his nephew, later the Emperor Augustus, 
to study there. 

Illyrians distinguished themselves as warriors in the Roman legions 
and made up a significant portion of the Praetorian Guard. Several 
of the Roman emperors were of Illyrian origin, including Diocleti- 
an (r. 284-305), who saved the empire from disintegration by in- 
troducing institutional reforms; and Constantine the Great (r. 
324-37), who accepted Christianity and transferred the empire's cap- 
ital from Rome to Byzantium, which he called Constantinople. Em- 
peror Justinian (r. 527-65) — who codified Roman law, built the most 
famous Byzantine church, the Hagia Sofia, and reextended the em- 
pire's control over lost territories — was probably also an Illyrian. 

Christianity came to the Illyrian-populated lands in the first cen- 
tury A.D. Saint Paul wrote that he preached in the Roman province 
of Illyricum, and legend holds that he visited Durres. When the 
Roman Empire was divided into eastern and western halves in A.D. 
395, the lands that now make up Albania were administered by 
the Eastern Empire but were ecclesiastically dependent on Rome. 
In A.D. 732, however, a Byzantine emperor, Leo the Isaurian, 
subordinated the area to the patriarchate of Constantinople. For 
centuries thereafter, the Albanian lands were an arena for the ec- 
clesiastical struggle between Rome and Constantinople. Most Al- 
banians living in the mountainous north became Roman Catholic, 
whereas in the southern and central regions the majority became 
Orthodox. 

The Barbarian Invasions and the Middle Ages 

The fall of the Roman Empire and the age of great migrations 



7 



Albania: A Country Study 

brought radical changes to the Balkan Peninsula and the Illyrian 
people. Barbarian tribesmen overran many rich Roman cities, de- 
stroying the existing social and economic order and leaving the great 
Roman aqueducts, coliseums, temples, and roads in ruins. The 
Illyrians gradually disappeared as a distinct people from the Balkans, 
replaced by the Bui gars, Serbs, Croats, and Albanians. In the late 
Middle Ages, new waves of invaders swept over the Albanian- 
populated lands. Thanks to their protective mountains, close-knit 
tribal society, and sheer pertinacity, however, the Albanian peo- 
ple developed a distinctive identity and language. 

In the fourth century, barbarian tribes began to prey upon the 
Roman Empire, and the fortunes of the Illyrian-populated lands 
sagged. The Germanic Goths and Asiatic Huns were the first to 
arrive, invading in mid-century; the Avars attacked in A.D. 570; 
and the Slavic Serbs and Croats overran Illyrian-populated areas 
in the early seventh century. About fifty years later, the Bui gars 
conquered much of the Balkan Peninsula and extended their do- 
main to the lowlands of what is now central Albania. Many Illyri- 
ans fled from coastal areas to the mountains, exchanging a sedentary 
peasant existence for the itinerant life of the herdsman. Other Illyri- 
ans intermarried with the conquerors and eventually assimilated. 
In general, the invaders destroyed or weakened Roman and Byzan- 
tine cultural centers in the lands that would become Albania. 

Again during the late medieval period, invaders ravaged the 
Illyrian-inhabited regions of the Balkans. Norman, Venetian, and 
Byzantine fleets attacked by sea. Bulgar, Serb, and Byzantine forces 
came overland and held the region in their grip for years. Clashes 
between rival clans and intrusions by the Serbs produced hard- 
ship that triggered an exodus from the region southward into 
Greece, including Thessaly, the Peloponnese, and the Aegean Is- 
lands. The invaders assimilated much of the Illyrian population, 
but the Illyrians living in lands that comprise modern-day Alba- 
nia and parts of Yugoslavia (see Glossary) and Greece were never 
completely absorbed or even controlled. 

The first historical mention of Albania and the Albanians as such 
appears in an account of the resistance by a Byzantine emperor, 
Alexius I Comnenus, to an offensive, in 1081, into Albanian- 
populated lands. The offense was waged by Vatican-backed Nor- 
mans from southern Italy. 

The Serbs occupied parts of northern and eastern Albania toward 
the end of the twelfth century. In 1204, after Western crusaders 
had sacked Constantinople, Venice won nominal control over Al- 
bania and the Epirus region of northern Greece and took posses- 
sion of Durres. A prince from the overthrown Byzantine ruling 



8 



Historical Setting 



family, Michael Comnenus, made alliances with Albanian chiefs 
and drove the Venetians from lands that now make up southern 
Albania and northern Greece. In 1204 he set up an independent 
principality, the Despotate of Epirus, with Janina (now Ioannina 
in northwest Greece) as its capital. In 1272 the king of Naples, 
Charles I of Anjou, occupied Durres and formed an Albanian king- 
dom that would last for a century. Internal power struggles fur- 
ther weakened the Byzantine Empire in the fourteenth century, 
enabling the Serbs' most powerful medieval ruler, Stefan Dusan, 
to establish a short-lived empire that included all of Albania ex- 
cept Durres. 

The Albanian Lands under Ottoman Domination, 
1385-1876 

The expanding Ottoman Empire overpowered the Balkan Penin- 
sula in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. At first, the feuding 
Albanian clans proved no match for the armies of the sultan (see 
Glossary). In the fifteenth century, however, Skanderbeg united 
the Albanian tribes in a defensive alliance that held up the Otto- 
man advance for more than two decades. His family's banner, bear- 
ing a black two-headed eagle on a red field, became the flag under 
which the Albanian national movement rallied centuries later. 

Five centuries of Ottoman rule left the Albanian people fractured 
along religious, regional, and tribal lines. The first Albanians to 
convert to Islam were young boys forcibly conscripted into the sul- 
tan's military and administration. In the early seventeenth centu- 
ry, however, Albanians converted to Islam in great numbers. 
Within a century, the Albanian Islamic community was split be- 
tween Sunni (see Glossary) Muslims and adherents to the Bektashi 
(see Glossary) sect. The Albanian people also became divided into 
two distinct tribal and dialectal groupings, the Gegs and Tosks. 
In the rugged northern mountains, Geg shepherds lived in a tribal 
society often completely independent of Ottoman rule. In the south, 
peasant Muslim and Orthodox Tosks worked the land for Muslim 
beys, provincial rulers who frequently revolted against the sultan's 
authority. In the nineteenth century, the Ottoman sultans tried 
in vain to shore up their collapsing empire by introducing a series 
of reforms aimed at reining in recalcitrant local officials and dous- 
ing the fires of nationalism among its myriad peoples. The power 
of nationalism, however, proved too strong to counteract. 

The Ottoman Conquest of Albania 

The Ottoman Turks expanded their empire from Anatolia to 



9 



Albania: A Country Study 

the Balkans in the fourteenth century. They crossed the Bosporus 
in 1352, and in 1389 they crushed a Serb-led army that included 
Albanian forces at Kosovo Polje, located in the southern part of 
present-day Yugoslavia. Europe gained a brief respite from Otto- 
man pressure in 1402 when the Mongol leader, Tamerlane, at- 
tacked Anatolia from the east, killed the Turks' absolute ruler, the 
sultan, and sparked a civil war. When order was restored, the Ot- 
tomans renewed their westward progress. In 1453 Sultan Mehmed 
IPs forces overran Constantinople and killed the last Byzantine 
emperor. 

The division of the Albanian-populated lands into small, quar- 
reling fiefdoms ruled by independent feudal lords and tribal chiefs 
made them easy prey for the Ottoman armies. In 1385 the Alba- 
nian ruler of Durres, Karl Thopia, appealed to the sultan for sup- 
port against his rivals, the Balsha family. An Ottoman force quickly 
marched into Albania along the Via Egnatia and routed the Bal- 
shas. The principal Albanian clans soon swore fealty to the Turks. 
Sultan Murad II launched the major Ottoman onslaught in the 
Balkans in 1423, and the Turks took Janina in 1431 and Arta, on 
the Ionian coast, in 1449. The Turks allowed conquered Albani- 
an clan chiefs to maintain their positions and property, but they 
had to pay tribute, send their sons to the Turkish court as hostages, 
and provide the Ottoman army with auxiliary troops. 

The Albanians' resistance to the Turks in the mid-fifteenth cen- 
tury won them acclaim all over Europe. Gjon Kastrioti of Kruje 
was one of the Albanian clan leaders who submitted to Turkish 
suzerainty. He was compelled to send his four sons to the Otto- 
man capital to be trained for military service. The youngest, Gjergj 
Kastrioti (1403-68), who would become the Albanians' greatest 
national hero, captured the sultan's attention. Renamed Iskander 
when he converted to Islam, the young man participated in mili- 
tary expeditions to Asia Minor and Europe. When appointed to 
administer a Balkan district, Iskander became known as Skander- 
beg. After Ottoman forces under Skanderbeg's command suffered 
defeat in a battle near Nis, in present-day Serbia, in 1443, the Al- 
banian rushed to Kruje and tricked a Turkish pasha into surren- 
dering to him the Kastrioti family fortress. Skanderbeg then 
reembraced Roman Catholicism and declared a holy war against 
the Turks. 

On March 1, 1444, Albanian chieftains gathered in the cathedral 
of Lezhe with the prince of Montenegro and delegates from Venice 
and proclaimed Skanderbeg commander of the Albanian resistance. 
All of Albania, including most of Epirus, accepted his leadership 
against the Ottoman Turks, but local leaders kept control of their 



10 



Equestrian statue of Skanderbeg on Skanderbeg Square in central Tirane 

Courtesy Charles Sudetic 



11 



Albania: A Country Study 

own districts. Under a red flag bearing Skanderbeg's heraldic em- 
blem, an Albanian force of about 30,000 men held off brutal Ot- 
toman campaigns against their lands for twenty-four years. Twice 
the Albanians overcame sieges of Kruje. In 1449 the Albanians 
routed Sultan Murad II himself. Later, they repulsed attacks led 
by Sultan Mehmed II. In 1461 Skanderbeg went to the aid of his 
suzerain, King Alfonso I of Naples, against the kings of Sicily. The 
government under Skanderbeg was unstable, however, and at times 
local Albanian rulers cooperated with the Ottoman Turks against 
him. When Skanderbeg died at Lezhe, the sultan reportedly cried 
out, "Asia and Europe are mine at last. Woe to Christendom! She 
has lost her sword and shield." 

With support from Naples and the Vatican, resistance to the Ot- 
toman Empire continued mostly in Albania's highlands, where the 
chieftains even opposed the construction of roads out of fear that 
they would bring Ottoman soldiers and tax collectors. The Alba- 
nians' fractured leadership, however, failed to halt the Ottoman 
onslaught. Kruje fell to the Ottoman Turks in 1478; Shkoder suc- 
cumbed in 1479 after a fifteen-month siege; and the Venetians 
evacuated Durres in 1501 . The defeats triggered a great Albanian 
exodus to southern Italy, especially to the kingdom of Naples, as 
well as to Sicily, Greece, Romania, and Egypt. Most of the Alba- 
nian refugees belonged to the Orthodox Church. Some of the 
emigres to Italy converted to Roman Catholicism, and the rest es- 
tablished a Uniate Church (see Glossary). The Albanians of Italy 
significantly influenced the Albanian national movement in future 
centuries, and Albanian Franciscan priests, most of whom were 
descended from emigres to Italy, played a significant role in the 
preservation of Catholicism in Albania's northern regions. 

Albanians under Ottoman Rule 

The Ottoman sultan considered himself God's agent on earth, 
the leader of a religious — not a national — state whose purpose was 
to defend and propagate Islam. Non-Muslims paid extra taxes and 
held an inferior status, but they could retain their old religion and 
a large measure of local autonomy. By converting to Islam, in- 
dividuals among the conquered could elevate themselves to the 
privileged stratum of society. In the early years of the empire, all 
Ottoman high officials were the sultan's bondsmen, the children 
of Christian subjects chosen in childhood for their promise, con- 
verted to Islam, and educated to serve. Some were selected from 
prisoners of war, others sent as gifts, and still others obtained 
through devshirme, the tribute of children levied in the Ottoman Em- 
pire's Balkan lands. Many of the best fighters in the sultan's elite 



12 



Historical Setting 



guard, the janissaries (see Glossary), were conscripted as young 
boys from Christian Albanian families, and high-ranking Ottoman 
officials often had Albanian bodyguards. 

In the early seventeenth century, many Albanian converts to Is- 
lam migrated elsewhere within the Ottoman Empire and found 
careers in the Ottoman military and government. Some attained 
powerful positions in the Ottoman administration. About thirty 
Albanians rose to the position of grand vizier, chief deputy to the 
sultan himself. In the second half of the seventeenth century, the 
Albanian Kopriilu family provided four grand viziers, who fought 
against corruption, temporarily shored up eroding central govern- 
ment control over rapacious local beys, and won several military 
victories. 

The Ottoman Turks divided the Albanian-inhabited lands among 
a number of districts, or vilayets. The Ottoman authorities did 
not initially stress conversion to Islam. In the seventeenth and 
eighteenth centuries, however, economic pressures and coercion 
produced the conversion of about two-thirds of the empire's Al- 
banians. 

The Ottoman Turks first focused their conversion campaigns 
on the Roman Catholic Albanians of the north and then on the 
Orthodox population of the south. The authorities increased tax- 
es, especially poll taxes, to make conversion economically attrac- 
tive. During and after a Christian counteroffensive against the 
Ottoman Empire from 1687 to 1690, when Albanian Catholics 
revolted against their Muslim overlords, the Ottoman pasha of Pec, 
a town in the south of present-day Yugoslavia, retaliated by forc- 
ing entire Albanian villages to accept Islam. Albanian beys then 
moved from the northern mountains to the fertile lands of Koso- 
vo, which had been abandoned by thousands of Orthodox Serbs 
fearing reprisals for their collaboration with the Christian forces. 

Most of the conversions to Islam took place in the lowlands of 
the Shkumbin River valley, where the Ottoman Turks could easily 
apply pressure because of the area's accessibility. Many Albanians, 
however, converted in name only and secretly continued to prac- 
tice Christianity. Often one branch of a family became Muslim 
while another remained Christian, and many times these families 
celebrated their respective religious holidays together. As early as 
the eighteenth century, a mystic Islamic sect, the Bektashi dervishes, 
spread into the empire's Albanian-populated lands. Probably found- 
ed in the late thirteenth century in Anatolia, Bektashism became 
the janissaries' official faith in the late sixteenth century. The Bek- 
tashi sect contains features of the Turks' pre-Islamic religion and 



13 



Albania: A Country Study 

emphasizes man as an individual. Women, unveiled, participate 
in Bektashi ceremonies on an equal basis, and the celebrants use 
wine despite the ban on alcohol in the Quran. The Bektashis be- 
came the largest religious group in southern Albania after the sul- 
tan disbanded the janissaries in 1826. Bektashi leaders played key 
roles in the Albanian nationalist movement of the late nineteenth 
century and were to a great degree responsible for the Albanians' 
traditional tolerance of religious differences. 

During the centuries of Ottoman rule, the Albanian lands re- 
mained one of Europe's most backward areas. In the mountains 
north of the Shkumbin River, Geg herders maintained their self- 
governing society comprised of clans. An association of clans was 
called a bajrak (see Glossary). Taxes on the northern tribes were 
difficult if not impossible for the Ottomans to collect because of 
the rough terrain and fierceness of the Albanian highlanders. Some 
mountain tribes succeeded in defending their independence through 
the centuries of Ottoman rule, engaging in intermittent guerrilla 
warfare with the Ottoman Turks, who never deemed it worthwhile 
to subjugate them. Until recent times, Geg clan chiefs, or bajrak- 
tars, exercised patriarchal powers, arranged marriages, mediated 
quarrels, and meted out punishments. The tribesmen of the north- 
ern Albanian mountains recognized no law but the Code of Lek, 
a collection of tribal laws transcribed in the fourteenth century by 
a Roman Catholic priest. The code regulates a variety of subjects, 
including blood vengeance. Even today, many Albanian highlanders 
regard the canon as the supreme law of the land. 

South of the Shkumbin River, the mostiy peasant Tosks lived 
in compact villages under elected rulers. Some Tosks living in 
settlements high in the mountains maintained their independence 
and often escaped payment of taxes. The Tosks of the lowlands, 
however, were easy for the Ottoman authorities to control. The 
Albanian tribal system disappeared there, and the Ottomans im- 
posed a system of military fiefs under which the sultan granted 
soldiers and cavalrymen temporary landholdings, or timars, in ex- 
change for military service. By the eighteenth century, many mili- 
tary fiefs had effectively become the hereditary landholdings of 
economically and politically powerful families who squeezed wealth 
from their hard-strapped Christian and Muslim tenant farmers. The 
beys, like the clan chiefs of the northern mountains, became virtual- 
ly independent rulers in their own provinces, had their own military 
contingents, and often waged war against each other to increase 
their landholdings and power. The Sublime Porte (see Glossary) 
attempted to press a divide-and-rule policy to keep the local beys 



14 



Historical Setting 



from uniting and posing a threat to Ottoman rule itself, but with 
little success. 

Local Albanian Leaders in the Early Nineteenth Century 

The weakening of Ottoman central authority and the timar sys- 
tem brought anarchy to the Albanian-populated lands. In the late 
eighteenth century, two Albanian centers of power emerged: 
Shkoder, under the Bushati family; and Janina, under Ali Pasha 
of Tepelene. When it suited their goals, both places cooperated 
with the Sublime Porte, and when it was expedient to defy the cen- 
tral government, each acted independently. 

The Bushati family dominated the Shkoder region through a net- 
work of alliances with various highland tribes. Kara Mahmud 
Bushati attempted to establish an autonomous principality and ex- 
pand the lands under his control by playing off Austria and Rus- 
sia against the Sublime Porte. In 1785 Kara Mahmud's forces 
attacked Montenegrin territory, and Austria offered to recognize 
him as the ruler of all Albania if he would ally himself with Vienna 
against the Sublime Porte. Seizing an opportunity, Kara Mahmud 
sent the sultan the heads of an Austrian delegation in 1788, and 
the Ottomans appointed him governor of Shkoder. When he at- 
tempted to wrest land from Montenegro in 1796, however, he was 
defeated and beheaded. Kara Mahmud's brother, Ibrahim, cooper- 
ated with the Sublime Porte until his death in 1810, but his suc- 
cessor, Mustafa Pasha Bushati, proved to be recalcitrant despite 
participation in Ottoman military campaigns against Greek revolu- 
tionaries and rebel pashas. He cooperated with the mountain tribes 
and brought a large area under his control. 

Ali Pasha (1741-1822), the Lion of Janina, was born to a power- 
ful clan from Tepelene and spent much of his youth as a bandit. 
He rose to become governor of the Ottoman province of Rume- 
lia, which included Albania, Macedonia, and Thrace, before es- 
tablishing himself in Janina. Like Kara Mahmud Bushati, Ali Pasha 
wanted to create an autonomous state under his rule. When Ali 
Pasha forged links with the Greek revolutionaries, Sultan Mah- 
mud II decided to destroy him. The sultan first discharged the Al- 
banian from his official posts and recalled him to Constantinople. 
Ali Pasha refused and put up a formidable resistance that Britain's 
Lord Byron immortalized in poems and letters. In January 1822, 
however, Ottoman agents assassinated Ali Pasha and sent his head 
to Constantinople. Nevertheless, it took eight more years before 
the Sublime Porte would move against Mustafa Pasha Bushati. The 
sultan sent Reshid Pasha, an Ottoman general, to Bitola (then called 
Monastir, in Macedonia), where he invited 1,000 Muslim Albanian 



15 



Albania: A Country Study 

leaders to meet him; in August 1830 Reshid Pasha had about 500 
of the Albanian leaders killed. He then turned on Mustafa Pasha, 
who surrendered and spent the rest of his life as an official in Con- 
stantinople. 

After crushing the Bushatis and Ali Pasha, the Sublime Porte 
introduced a series of reforms, known as the tanzimat, which were 
aimed at strengthening the empire by reining in fractious pashas. 
The government organized a recruitment program for the mili- 
tary and opened Turkish-language schools to propagate Islam and 
instill loyalty to the empire. The timars officially became large in- 
dividual landholdings, especially in the lowlands. In 1835 the Sub- 
lime Porte divided the Albanian-populated lands into the vilayets 
of Janina and Rumelia and dispatched officials from Constantinople 
to administer them. After 1865 the central authorities redivided 
the Albanian lands among the vilayets of Shkoder, Janina, Bitola, 
and Kosovo. The reforms angered the highland Albanian chief- 
tains, who found their privileges reduced with no apparent com- 
pensation, and the authorities eventually abandoned efforts to 
control the chieftains. Ottoman troops crushed local rebellions in 
the lowlands, however, and conditions there remained bleak. Large 
numbers of Tosks emigrated to join sizable Albanian emigre com- 
munities in Romania, Egypt, Bulgaria, Constantinople, southern 
Italy, and later the United States. As a result of contacts main- 
tained between the Tosks and their relatives living or returning 
from abroad, foreign ideas began to seep into Albania. 

National Awakening and the Birth of Albania, 1876- 
1918 

By the 1870s, the Sublime Porte's reforms aimed at checking 
the Ottoman Empire's disintegration had clearly failed. The im- 
age of the "Turkish yoke" had become fixed in the nationalist 
mythologies and psyches of the empire's Balkan peoples, and their 
march toward independence quickened. The Albanians, because 
of the preponderance of Muslims who had links with Islam and 
internal social divisions, were the last of the Balkan peoples to de- 
velop a national consciousness. That consciousness was triggered 
by fears that the Ottoman Empire would lose its Albanian-populated 
lands to the emerging Balkan states — Serbia, Montenegro, Bul- 
garia, and Greece. In 1878 Albanian leaders formed the Prizren 
League, which pressed for territorial autonomy; and after decades 
of unrest a major uprising exploded in the Albanian-populated Ot- 
toman territories in 1912, on the eve of the First Balkan War. When 
Serbia, Montenegro, and Greece laid claim to Albanian lands dur- 
ing the war, the Albanians declared independence. The European 



16 



Historical Setting 



Great Powers endorsed an independent Albania in 1913, after the 
Second Balkan War. The young state, however, collapsed within 
weeks of the outbreak of World War I. 

The Rise of Albanian Nationalism 

The 1877-78 Russo-Turkish War dealt a decisive blow to Otto- 
man power in the Balkan Peninsula, leaving the empire with only 
a precarious hold on Macedonia and the Albanian-populated lands. 
The Albanians' fear that the lands they inhabited would be parti- 
tioned among Montenegro, Serbia, Bulgaria, and Greece fueled 
the rise of Albanian nationalism. The first postwar treaty, the abor- 
tive Treaty of San Stefano (see Glossary) signed on March 3, 1878, 
assigned Albanian-populated lands to Serbia, Montenegro, and Bul- 
garia. Austria- Hungary and Britain blocked the arrangement be- 
cause it awarded Russia a predominant position in the Balkans and 
thereby upset the European balance of power. A peace conference 
to settle the dispute was held later in the year in Berlin. 

The Treaty of San Stefano triggered profound anxiety among the 
Albanians meanwhile, and it spurred their leaders to organize a 
defense of the lands they inhabited. In the spring of 1878, influen- 
tial Albanians in Constantinople — including Abdyl Frasheri, the 
Albanian national movement's leading figure during its early 
years — organized a secret committee to direct the Albanians' 
resistance. In May the group called for a general meeting of represen- 
tatives from all the Albanian-populated lands. On June 10, 1878, 
about eighty delegates, mosdy Muslim religious leaders, clan chiefs, 
and other influential people from the four Albanian-populated Ot- 
toman vilayets, met in the Kosovo town of Prizren. The delegates 
set up a standing organization, the Prizren League, under the direc- 
tion of a central committee that had the power to impose taxes and 
raise an army. The Prizren League worked to gain autonomy for 
the Albanians and to thwart implementation of the Treaty of San 
Stefano, but not to create an independent Albania. 

At first the Ottoman authorities supported the Prizren League, 
but the Sublime Porte pressed the delegates to declare themselves 
to be first and foremost Ottomans rather than Albanians. Some 
delegates supported this position and advocated emphasizing Mus- 
lim solidarity and the defense of Muslim lands, including pres- 
ent-day Bosnia and Hercegovina. Other representatives, under 
Frasheri 's leadership, focused on working toward Albanian auton- 
omy and creating a sense of Albanian identity that would cut across 
religious and tribal lines. Because conservative Muslims constituted 
a majority of the representatives, the Prizren League supported 
maintenance of Ottoman suzerainty. 



17 



Albania: A Country Study 

In July 1878, the league sent a memorandum to the Great Pow- 
ers at the Congress of Berlin, which had been called to settle the 
unresolved problems of the Russo-Turkish War. The memoran- 
dum demanded that all Albanians be united in a single Ottoman 
province that would be governed from Bitola by a Turkish gover- 
nor, who would be advised by an Albanian committee elected by 
universal suffrage. 

The Congress of Berlin ignored the league's memorandum, and 
Germany's Otto von Bismarck even proclaimed that an Albanian 
nation did not exist. The congress ceded to Montenegro the cities 
of Bar and Podgorica and areas around the mountain villages of 
Gusinje and Plav, which Albanian leaders considered Albanian ter- 
ritory. Serbia also won Albanian- inhabited lands. The Albanians, 
the vast majority loyal to the empire, vehemently opposed the ter- 
ritorial losses. Albanians also feared the possible loss of Epirus to 
Greece. The Prizren League organized armed resistance efforts in 
Gusinje, Plav, Shkoder, Prizren, Prevesa, and Janina. A border 
tribesman at the time described the frontier as "floating on blood. ' ' 

In August 1878, the Congress of Berlin ordered a commission 
to trace a border between the Ottoman Empire and Montenegro. 
The congress also directed Greece and the Ottoman Empire to 
negotiate a solution to their border dispute. The Great Powers ex- 
pected the Ottomans to ensure that the Albanians would respect 
the new borders; they ignored the fact that the sultan's military 
forces were too weak to enforce any settlement and that the Otto- 
mans could only benefit by the Albanians' resistance. The Sub- 
lime Porte, in fact, armed the Albanians and allowed them to levy 
taxes, and when the Ottoman army withdrew from areas awarded 
to Montenegro under the Treaty of Berlin, Roman Catholic Al- 
banian tribesmen simply took control. The Albanians' successful 
resistance to the treaty forced the Great Powers to alter the bor- 
der, returning Gusinje and Plav to the Ottoman Empire and grant- 
ing Montenegro the mostly Muslim Albanian-populated coastal 
town of Ulcinj . But the Albanians there refused to surrender as 
well. Finally, the Great Powers blockaded Ulcinj by sea and pres- 
sured the Ottoman authorities to bring the Albanians under 
control. The Great Powers decided in 1881 to cede Greece only 
Thessaly and the small Albanian-populated district of Arta. 

Faced with growing international pressure to "pacify" the refrac- 
tory Albanians, the sultan dispatched a large army under Dervish 
Turgut Pasha to suppress the Prizren League and deliver Ulcinj 
to Montenegro. Albanians loyal to the empire supported the Sub- 
lime Porte's military intervention. In April 1881 , Dervish Pasha's 
10,000 men captured Prizren and later crushed the resistance at 



18 



Historical Setting 



Ulcinj. The Prizren League's leaders and their families were ar- 
rested and deported. Frasheri, who originally received a death sen- 
tence, was imprisoned until 1885 and exiled until his death seven 
years later. In the three years it survived, the Prizren League ef- 
fectively made the Great Powers aware of the Albanian people and 
their national interests. Montenegro and Greece received much 
less Albanian-populated territory than they would have won without 
the league's resistance. 

Formidable barriers frustrated Albanian leaders' efforts to in- 
still in their people an Albanian rather than an Ottoman identity. 
Divided into four vilayets, Albanians had no common geographi- 
cal or political nerve center. The Albanians' religious differences 
forced nationalist leaders to give the national movement a purely 
secular character that alienated religious leaders. The most signifi- 
cant factor uniting the Albanians, their spoken language, lacked 
a standard literary form and even a standard alphabet. Each of 
the three available choices, the Latin, Cyrillic, and Arabic scripts, 
implied different political and religious orientations opposed by one 
or another element of the population. In 1878 there were no 
Albanian-language schools in the most developed of the Albanian- 
inhabited areas — Gjirokaster, Berat, and Vlore — where schools 
conducted classes either in Turkish or in Greek (see Education: 
Pre-Communist Era, ch. 2). 

In the late nineteenth century, Albanian intellectuals began devis- 
ing a single, standard Albanian literary language and making de- 
mands that it be used in schools. In Constantinople in 1879, Sami 
Frasheri founded a cultural and educational organization, the So- 
ciety for the Printing of Albanian Writings, whose membership 
comprised Muslim, Catholic, and Orthodox Albanians. Nairn 
Frasheri, the most-renowned Albanian poet, joined the society and 
wrote and edited textbooks. Albanian emigres in Bulgaria, Egypt, 
Italy, Romania, and the United States supported the society's work. 
Others opposed it. The Greeks, who dominated the education of 
Orthodox Albanians, joined the Turks in suppressing the Albani- 
ans' culture, especially Albanian-language education. In 1886 the 
ecumenical patriarch of Constantinople threatened to excommu- 
nicate anyone found reading or writing Albanian, and priests taught 
that God would not understand prayers uttered in Albanian. 

The Ottoman Empire continued to crumble after the Congress 
of Berlin. The empire's financial troubles prevented Sultan Abdul 
Hamid II from reforming his military, and he resorted to repres- 
sion to maintain order. The authorities strove without success to 
control the political situation in the empire's Albanian-populated 
lands, arresting suspected nationalist activists. When the sultan 



19 



Albania: A Country Study 

refused Albanian demands for unification of the four Albanian- 
populated vilayets, Albanian leaders reorganized the Prizren League 
and incited uprisings that brought the Albanian lands, especially 
Kosovo, to near anarchy. The imperial authorities again disband- 
ed the Prizren League in 1897, executed its president in 1902, and 
banned Albanian-language books and correspondence. In Macedo- 
nia, where Bulgarian-, Greek-, and Serbian -backed terrorists were 
fighting Ottoman authorities and one another for control, Mus- 
lim Albanians suffered attacks, and Albanian guerrilla groups 
retaliated. In 1906 Albanian leaders meeting in Bitola established 
the secret Committee for the Liberation of Albania. A year later, 
Albanian guerrillas assassinated the Greek Orthodox metropoli- 
tan of Korce. 

In 1906 opposition groups in the Ottoman Empire emerged, one 
of which evolved into the Committee of Union and Progress, more 
commonly known as the Young Turks, which proposed restoring 
constitutional government in Constantinople, by revolution if neces- 
sary. In July 1908, a month after a Young Turk rebellion in 
Macedonia supported by an Albanian uprising in Kosovo and 
Macedonia escalated into widespread insurrection and mutiny with- 
in the imperial army, Sultan Abdul Hamid II agreed to demands 
by the Young Turks to restore constitutional rule. Many Albani- 
ans participated in the Young Turks uprising, hoping that it would 
gain their people autonomy within the empire . The Young Turks 
lifted the Ottoman ban on Albanian-language schools and on writing 
the Albanian language. As a consequence, Albanian intellectuals 
meeting in Bitola in 1908 chose the Latin alphabet as a standard 
script. The Young Turks, however, were set on maintaining the 
empire and not interested in making concessions to the myriad na- 
tionalist groups within its borders. After securing the abdication 
of Abdul Hamid II in April 1909, the new authorities levied tax- 
es, oudawed guerrilla groups and nationalist societies, and attempt- 
ed to extend Constantinople's control over the northern Albanian 
mountainmen. In addition, the Young Turks legalized the bastina- 
do, or beating with a stick, even for misdemeanors, banned the 
carrying of rifles, and denied the existence of an Albanian nation- 
ality. The new government also appealed for Islamic solidarity to 
break the Albanians' unity and used the Muslim clergy to try to 
impose the Arabic alphabet. 

The Albanians refused to submit to the Young Turks' campaign 
to "Ottomanize" them by force. New Albanian uprisings began 
in Kosovo and the northern mountains in early April 1910. Otto- 
man forces quashed these rebellions after three months, outlawed 
Albanian organizations, disarmed entire regions, and closed down 



20 



Historical Setting 



schools and publications. Montenegro, preparing to grab Albanian- 
populated lands for itself, supported a 191 1 uprising by the moun- 
tain tribes against the Young Turks regime; the uprising grew into 
a widespread revolt. Unable to control the Albanians by force, the 
Ottoman government granted concessions on schools, military 
recruitment, and taxation and sanctioned the use of the Latin script 
for the Albanian language. The government refused, however, to 
unite the four Albanian-inhabited vilayets. 

The Balkan Wars and Creation of Independent Albania 

In May 1912, the Albanians once more rose against the Otto- 
man Empire and took the Macedonian capitol, Skopje, by August. 
Stunned, the Young Turks regime acceded to some of the rebels' 
demands. The First Balkan War, however, erupted before a final 
settlement could be worked out. Most Albanians remained neu- 
tral during the war, during which the Balkan allies — the Serbs, 
Bulgarians, and Greeks — quickly drove the Turks to the walls of 
Constantinople. The Montenegrins surrounded Shkoder with the 
help of northern Albanian tribes anxious to fight the Ottoman 
Turks. Serb forces took much of northern Albania, and the Greeks 
captured Janina and parts of southern Albania. 

An assembly of eighty-three Muslim and Christian leaders meet- 
ing in Vlore in November 1912 declared Albania an independent 
country and set up a provisional government. However, in its con- 
cluding Treaty of London of May 1913, an ambassadorial confer- 
ence decided the major questions concerning the Albanians after 
the First Balkan War. One of Serbia's primary war aims was to 
gain an Adriatic port, preferably Durres. Austria- Hungary and 
Italy opposed giving Serbia an Adriatic outiet, which they feared 
would become a Russian port. They instead supported the crea- 
tion of an autonomous Albania. Russia backed Serbia's and Mon- 
tenegro's claims to Albanian-inhabited lands. Britain and Germany 
remained neutral. Chaired by Britain's foreign secretary, Sir Ed- 
ward Grey, the ambassadors' conference initially decided to cre- 
ate an autonomous Albania under continued Ottoman rule, but 
with the protection of the Great Powers. This solution, as detailed 
in the Treaty of London, was abandoned in the summer of 1913 
when it became obvious that the Ottoman Empire would, in the 
Second Balkan War, lose Macedonia and hence its overland con- 
nection with the Albanian-inhabited lands. 

In July 1913, the Great Powers opted to recognize an indepen- 
dent, neutral Albanian state ruled by a constitutional monarchy 
and under the protection of the Great Powers. The August 1913 



21 



Albania: A Country Study 

Treaty of Bucharest established that independent Albania was a 
country with about 28,000 square kilometers of territory and a 
population of 800,000. Montenegro, whose tribesmen had resort- 
ed to terror, mass murder, and forced conversion in territories it 
coveted, had to surrender Shkoder. Serbia reluctantly succumbed 
to an ultimatum from Austria-Hungary, Germany, and Italy to 
withdraw from northern Albania. The treaty, however, left large 
areas, notably Kosovo and western Macedonia, with majority Al- 
banian populations outside the new state and failed to solve the 
region's nationality problems. 

Territorial disputes have divided the Albanians and Serbs since 
the Middle Ages, but none more so than the clash over the Koso- 
vo region. Serbs consider Kosovo their Holy Land. They argue 
that their ancestors settled in the region during the seventh centu- 
ry, that medieval Serbian kings were crowned there, and that in 
the mid-fourteenth century the Serbs' greatest medieval ruler, 
Stefan Dusan, established the seat of his empire for a time near 
Prizren. More important, numerous Serbian Orthodox shrines, 
including the patriarchate of the Serbian Orthodox Church, are 
located in Kosovo. The key event in the Serbs' national mytholo- 
gy, the defeat of their forces by the Ottoman Turks, took place 
at Kosovo Polje in 1389. For their part, the Albanians claim the 
land based on the argument that they are the descendants of the 
ancient Illyrians, the indigenous people of the region, and have 
been there since before the first Serb ever set foot in the Balkans. 
Although the Albanians have not left architectural remains simi- 
lar to the Serbs' religious shrines, the Albanians point to the fact 
that Prizren was the seat of their first nationalist organization, the 
Prizren League, and call the region the cradle of their national 
awakening. Finally, Albanians claim Kosovo based on the fact that 
their kinsmen have constituted the vast majority of Kosovo's popu- 
lation since at least the eighteenth century. 

When the Great Powers recognized an independent Albania, they 
also established the International Control Commission, which en- 
deavored to exert and expand its authority and elbow out the Vlore 
provisional government and the rival government of Esad Pasha 
Toptani, who enjoyed the support of large landowners in central 
Albania and boasted a formidable militia. The control commis- 
sion drafted a constitution that provided for a National Assembly 
of elected local representatives, the heads of the Albanians' major 
religious groups, ten persons nominated by the prince, and other 
noteworthy persons. The Great Powers chose Prince Wilhelm of 
Wied, a thirty-five-year-old German army captain, to head the new 



22 



Historical Setting 



state. In March 1914, he moved into a Durres building hastily con- 
verted into a palace. 

After independence local power struggles, foreign provocations, 
miserable economic conditions, and modest attempts at social and 
religious reform fueled Albanian uprisings aimed at the prince and 
the control commission. Ottoman propaganda, which appealed to 
uneducated peasants loyal to Islam and Islamic spiritual leaders, 
attacked the Albanian regime as a puppet of the large landowners 
and Europe's Christian powers. Greece, unhappy that the Great 
Powers did not award it southern Albania, also encouraged upris- 
ings against the Albanian government, and armed Greek bands 
carried out atrocities against Albanian villagers. Italy plotted with 
Esad Pasha to overthrow the new prince. Montenegro and Serbia 
plotted with the northern tribesmen. For their part, the Great Pow- 
ers gave Prince Wilhelm, who was unversed in Albanian affairs, 
intrigue, or diplomacy, little moral or material backing. A gener- 
al insurrection in the summer of 1914 stripped the prince of con- 
trol except in Durres and Vlore. 

World War I and Its Effects on Albania 

Political chaos engulfed Albania after the outbreak of World War 
I. Surrounded by insurgents in Durres, Prince Wilhelm departed 
the country in September 1914, just six months after arriving, and 
subsequently joined the German army and served on the Eastern 
Front. The Albanian people split along religious and tribal lines 
after the prince's departure. Muslims demanded a Muslim prince 
and looked to Turkey as the protector of the privileges they had 
enjoyed. Other Albanians became little more than agents of Italy 
and Serbia. Still others, including many beys and clan chiefs, recog- 
nized no superior authority. In late 1914, Greece occupied southern 
Albania, including Korce and Gjirokaster. Italy occupied Vlore, 
and Serbia and Montenegro occupied parts of northern Albania 
until a Central Powers offensive scattered the Serbian army, which 
was evacuated by the French to Thessaloniki. Austro-Hungarian 
and Bulgarian forces then occupied about two-thirds of the country. 

Under the secret Treaty of London signed in April 1915, the 
Triple Entente powers promised Italy that it would gain Vlore and 
nearby lands and a protectorate over Albania in exchange for en- 
tering the war against Austria- Hungary. Serbia and Montenegro 
were promised much of northern Albania, and Greece was promised 
much of the country's southern half. The treaty left a tiny Albani- 
an state that would be represented by Italy in its relations with the 
other major powers. In September 1918, Entente forces broke 
through the Central Powers' lines north of Thessaloniki, and within 



23 



Albania: A Country Study 

days Austro- Hungarian forces began to withdraw from Albania. 
When the war ended on November 11, 1918, Italy's army had oc- 
cupied most of Albania; Serbia held much of the country's north- 
ern mountains; Greece occupied a sliver of land within Albania's 
1913 borders; and French forces occupied Korce and Shkoder as 
well as other regions with sizable Albanian populations, such as 
Kosovo, which were later handed over to Serbia. 

Interwar Albania, 1918-41 

Albania achieved real statehood after World War I, in part 
because of the diplomatic intercession of the United States. The 
country suffered from a debilitating lack of economic and social 
development, however, and its first years of independence were 
fraught with political instability. Unable to survive in a predatory 
world without a foreign protector, Albania became the object of 
tensions between Italy and the Kingdom of the Serbs, Croats, and 
Slovenes (Yugoslavia), which were both bent on controlling the 
country. With the kingdom's military assistance, Ahmed Bey Zogu, 
the son of a clan chieftain, emerged victorious from an internal 
political power struggle in late 1924. Zogu, however, quickly turned 
his back on Belgrade and looked to Mussolini's Italy for patronage. 
In 1928 Zogu coaxed the country's parliament to declare Albania 
a kingdom and name him king. King Zog remained a hidebound 
conservative, and Albania was the only Balkan state where the 
government did not see fit to introduce a comprehensive land re- 
form between the two world wars. Mussolini's forces finally over- 
threw Zog when they occupied Albania in 1939. 

Albania's Reemergence after World War I 

Albania's political confusion continued in the wake of World War 
I. The country lacked a single recognized government, and Alba- 
nians feared, with justification, that Greece, Yugoslavia, and Italy 
would succeed in extinguishing Albania's independence and carve 
up the country. Italian forces controlled Albanian political activi- 
ty in the areas they occupied. The Serbs, who largely dictated Yu- 
goslavia's foreign policy after World War I, strove to take over 
northern Albania, and the Greeks sought to control southern Al- 
bania. A delegation sent by a postwar Albanian National Assem- 
bly that met at Durres in December 1918 defended Albanian 
interests at the Paris Peace Conference, but the conference denied 
Albania official representation. The National Assembly, anxious 
to keep Albania intact, expressed willingness to accept Italian pro- 
tection and even an Italian prince as a ruler so long as it would 
mean Albania did not lose territory. 



24 



Historical Setting 



In January 1919, the Serbs attacked the Albanian inhabitants 
of Gusinje and Plav with regular troops and artillery after the Al- 
banians had appealed to Britain for protection. The Serb forces 
massacred some of the Albanians and forced about 35,000 people 
to flee to the Shkoder area. In Kosovo the Serbs subjected the Al- 
banians to brutalities, stripped them of territory under the guise 
of land reform, and rewarded Serb colonists with homesteads. In 
response, Albanians continued guerrilla warfare in both Serbia and 
Montenegro. 

At the Paris Peace Conference in January 1920, negotiators from 
France, Britain, and Greece agreed to divide Albania among Yu- 
goslavia, Italy, and Greece as a diplomatic expedient aimed at find- 
ing a compromise solution to the territorial conflict between Italy 
and Yugoslavia. The deal was done behind the Albanians' backs 
and in the absence of a United States negotiator. 

Members of a second Albanian National Assembly held at 
Lushnje in January 1920 rejected the partition plan and warned 
that Albanians would take up arms to defend their country's in- 
dependence and territorial integrity. The Lushnje National Assem- 
bly appointed a four-man regency to rule the country. A bicameral 
parliament was also created, appointing members of its own ranks 
to an upper chamber, the Senate. An elected lower chamber, the 
Chamber of Deputies, had one deputy for every 12,000 people in 
Albania and one for the Albanian community in the United States. 
In February 1920, the government moved to Tirane, which be- 
came Albania's capital. 

One month later, in March 1920, President Woodrow Wilson 
intervened to block the Paris agreement. The United States un- 
derscored its support for Albania's independence by recognizing 
an official Albanian representative to Washington, and in December 
the League of Nations recognized Albania's sovereignty by admit- 
ting it as a full member. The country's borders, however, remained 
unsettled. 

Albania's new government campaigned to end Italy's occupa- 
tion of the country and encouraged peasants to harass Italian forces. 
In September 1920, after a siege of Italian-occupied Vlore by Al- 
banian forces, Rome abandoned its claims on Albania under the 
1915 Treaty of London and withdrew its forces from all of Alba- 
nia except Sazan Island at the mouth of Vlore Bay. Yugoslavia, 
however, pursued a predatory policy toward Albania, and after 
Albanian tribesmen clashed with Serb forces occupying the north- 
ern part of the country, Yugoslav troops took to burning villages 
and killing and expelling civilians. Belgrade then recruited a dis- 
gruntled Geg clan chief, Gjon Markagjoni, who led his Roman 



25 



Albania: A Country Study 

Catholic Mirdite tribesmen in a rebellion against the regency and 
parliament. Markagjoni proclaimed the founding of an indepen- 
dent "Mirdite Republic" based in Prizren, which had fallen into 
Serbian hands during the First Balkan War. Finally, in Novem- 
ber 1921, Yugoslav troops invaded Albanian territory beyond the 
areas they were already occupying. Outraged at the Yugoslav at- 
tack and Belgrade's lies, the League of Nations dispatched a com- 
mission composed of representatives of Britain, France, Italy, and 
Japan that reaffirmed Albania's 1913 borders. Yugoslavia com- 
plained bitterly but had no choice but to withdraw its troops. The 
so-called Mirdite Republic disappeared. 

Social and Economic Conditions after World War I 

Extraordinarily undeveloped, the Albania that emerged after 
World War I was home to something less than a million people 
divided into three major religious groups and two distinct classes: 
those people who owned land and claimed semifeudal privileges 
and those who did not. The landowners had always held the prin- 
cipal ruling posts in the country's central and southern regions, 
but many of them were steeped in the same Oriental conservatism 
that had brought decay to the Ottoman Empire. The landowning 
elite expected that they would continue to enjoy precedence. The 
country's peasants, however, were beginning to dispute the landed 
aristocracy's control. Muslims made up the majority of the land- 
owning class as well as most of the pool of Ottoman-trained admin- 
istrators and officials. Thus Muslims filled most of the country's 
administrative posts. 

In northern Albania, the government directly controlled only 
Shkoder and its environs. The highland clans were suspicious of 
a constitutional government legislating in the interests of the country 
as a whole, and the Roman Catholic Church became the principal 
link between Tirane and the tribesmen. In many instances, ad- 
ministrative communications were addressed to priests for circu- 
lation among their parishioners. 

Poor and remote, Albania remained decades behind other Balkan 
countries in educational and social development. Illiteracy plagued 
almost the entire population. About 90 percent of the country's 
peasants practiced subsistence agriculture, using ancient methods 
and tools, such as wooden plows. Much of the country's richest 
farmland lay under water in malaria-infested coastal marshlands. 
Albania lacked a banking system, a railroad, a modern port, an 
efficient military, a university, and a modern press. The Albani- 
ans had Europe's highest birthrate and infant mortality rate, and 
life expectancy for men was about thirty-eight years. In the post 



26 



Historical Setting 



World War I period, the American Red Cross opened schools and 
hospitals at Durres and Tirane, and one Red Cross worker found- 
ed an Albanian chapter of the Boy Scouts that all boys between 
twelve and eighteen years old were subsequently required by law 
to join. Although hundreds of schools opened across the country, 
in 1938 only 36 percent of Albanian children of school age were 
receiving education of any kind. 

Despite the meager educational opportunities, literature flour- 
ished in Albania between the two world wars. A Franciscan priest, 
Gjergj Fishta, Albania's greatest poet, dominated the literary scene 
with his poems on the Albanians' perseverance during their quest 
for freedom. 

Independence also brought changes to religious life in Albania. 
The ecumenical patriarch of Constantinople recognized the au- 
tocephaly of the Albanian Orthodox Church after a meeting of the 
country's Albanian Orthodox congregations in Berat in August 
1922. The most energetic reformers in Albania came from the Or- 
thodox, who wanted to see Albania move quickly away from its 
Muslim, Turkish past, during which Christians made up the un- 
derclass. Albania's conservative Sunni Muslim community broke 
its last ties with Constantinople in 1923, formally declaring that 
there had been no caliph (see Glossary) since the Prophet Muham- 
mad himself and that Muslim Albanians pledged primary alle- 
giance to their native country. The Muslims also banned polygyny 
and allowed women to choose whether or not to wear a veil. 

Government and Politics 

Albania's first political parties emerged only after World War 
I. Even more than in other parts of the Balkans, political parties 
were impermanent gatherings centered on prominent persons who 
created temporary alliances to achieve their personal aims. The 
major conservative party, the Progressive Party, attracted some 
northern clan chiefs and prominent Muslim landholders of southern 
Albania whose main platform was firm opposition to any agricul- 
tural reform program that would transfer their lands to the peasan- 
try. The country's biggest landowner, Shefqet Bey Verlaci, led the 
Progressive Party. The Popular Party's ranks included the reform- 
minded Orthodox bishop of Durres, Fan S. Noli, who was imbued 
with Western ideas at his alma mater, Harvard University, and 
had even translated Shakespeare and Ibsen into Albanian. The 
Popular Party also included Ahmed Zogu, the twenty-four- year- 
old son of the chief of the Mati, a central Albanian Muslim tribe. 
The future King Zog drew his support from some northern clans 



27 



Albania: A Country Study 

and kept an armed gang in his service, but many Geg clan leaders 
refused to support either main party. 

Interwar Albanian governments appeared and disappeared in 
rapid succession. Between July and December 1921 alone, the 
premiership changed hands five times. The Popular Party's head, 
Xhafer Ypi, formed a government in December 1921, with Noli 
as foreign minister and Zogu as internal affairs minister. Noli, 
however, resigned soon after Zogu, in an attempt to disarm the 
lowland Albanians, resorted to repression, despite the fact that bear- 
ing arms was a traditional custom. When the government's ene- 
mies attacked Tirane in early 1922, Zogu stayed in the capital and, 
with the help of the British ambassador, repulsed the assault. He 
took over the premiership later in the year and turned his back 
on the Popular Party by announcing his engagement to the daughter 
of the Progressive Party leader, Shefqet Beg Verlaci. 

Zogu's proteges organized themselves into the Government 
Party. Noli and other Western-oriented leaders formed the Oppo- 
sition Party of Democrats, which attracted Zogu's many personal 
enemies, ideological opponents, and people left unrewarded by his 
political machine. Ideologically, the Democrats included a broad 
sweep of people who advocated everything from conservative Is- 
lam to Noli's dreams of rapid modernization. Opposition to Zogu 
was formidable. Orthodox peasants in Albania's southern lowlands 
loathed Zogu because he supported the Muslim landowners' ef- 
forts to block land reform; Shkoder's citizens felt shortchanged be- 
cause their city did not become Albania's capital; and nationalists 
were dissatisfied because Zogu's government did not press Alba- 
nia's claims to Kosovo or speak up more energetically for the rights 
of the ethnic Albanian minorities in present-day Yugoslavia and 
Greece. 

Zogu's party handily won elections for a National Assembly in 
early 1924. Zogu soon stepped aside, however, handing over the 
premiership to Verlaci in the wake of a financial scandal and an 
assassination attempt by a young radical that left Zogu wounded. 
The opposition withdrew from the assembly after the leader of a 
radical youth organization, Avni Rustemi, was murdered in the 
street outside the parliament building. Noli's supporters blamed 
the murder on Zogu's Mati clansmen, who continued to practice 
blood vengeance. After the walkout, discontent mounted, and by 
July 1924 a peasant-backed insurgency had won control of Tirane. 
Noli became prime minister, and Zogu fled to Yugoslavia. 

Fan Noli, an idealist, rejected demands for new elections on the 
grounds that Albania needed a "paternal" government. In a 
manifesto describing his government's program, Noli called for 



28 



Historical Setting 



abolishing feudalism, resisting Italian domination, and establish- 
ing a Western-style constitutional government. Scaling back the 
bureaucracy, strengthening local government, assisting peasants, 
throwing Albania open to foreign investment, and improving the 
country's bleak transportation, public health, and education facil- 
ities filled out the Noli government's overly ambitious agenda. Noli, 
however, encountered resistance to his program from people who 
had helped him oust Zogu, and he never attracted the foreign aid 
necessary to carry out his reform plans. Concerned over potential 
Italian domination, Noli criticized the League of Nations for fail- 
ing to settle the threat facing Albania on its land borders. 

Under Fan Noli, the government set up a special tribunal that 
passed death sentences, in absentia, on Zogu, Verlaci, and others 
and confiscated their property. In Yugoslavia Zogu recruited a 
mercenary army, and Belgrade furnished the Albanian leader with 
weapons, about 1,000 Yugoslav army regulars, and refugee troops 
from the Russian Civil War to mount an invasion that the Serbs 
hoped would bring them disputed areas along the border. After 
Noli's regime decided to establish diplomatic relations with the 
Soviet Union, a bitter enemy of the Serbian ruling family, Bel- 
grade began making wild allegations that the Albanian regime was 
about to embrace Bolshevism. On December 13, 1924, Zogu's 
Yugoslav-backed army crossed into Albanian territory. By Christ- 
mas Eve, Zogu had reclaimed the capital, and Noli and his govern- 
ment had fled to Italy. 

Zogu quickly smothered Albania's experiment in parliamentary 
democracy. Looking after the interests of the large landowners, 
clan chiefs, and others with a vested interest in maintaining the 
old order, he undertook no serious reform measures. The parlia- 
ment quickly adopted a new constitution, proclaimed Albania a 
republic, and granted Zogu dictatorial powers that allowed him 
to appoint and dismiss ministers, veto legislation, and name all 
major administrative personnel and a third of the Senate. On Janu- 
ary 31 , Zogu was elected president for a seven-year term. Opposi- 
tion parties and civil liberties disappeared, opponents of the regime 
were murdered, and the press suffered strict censorship. Zogu ruled 
Albania using four military governors responsible to him alone. 
He appointed clan chieftains as reserve army officers, who were 
kept on call to protect the regime against domestic or foreign threats. 

Italian Penetration 

Belgrade, in return for aiding Zogu's invasion, expected repay- 
ment in the form of territory and influence in Tirane. It is cer- 
tain that Zogu promised Belgrade frontier concessions before the 



29 



Albania: A Country Study 

invasion, but once in power the Albanian leader continued to press 
Albania's own territorial claims. On July 30, 1925, the two na- 
tions signed an agreement returning the town of Saint Naum on 
Lake Ohrid and other disputed borderlands to Yugoslavia. The 
larger country, however, never reaped the dividends it hoped for 
when it invested in Zogu. He shunned Belgrade and turned Alba- 
nia toward Italy for protection. 

Advocates of territorial expansion in Italy gathered strength in 
October 1922 when Benito Mussolini took power in Rome. His 
fascist supporters undertook an unabashed program aimed at es- 
tablishing a new Roman empire in the Mediterranean region that 
would rival Britain and France. Mussolini saw Albania as a foothold 
in the Balkans, and after the war the Great Powers in effect recog- 
nized an Italian protectorate over Albania. 

In May 1925, Italy began a penetration into Albania's national 
life that would culminate fourteen years later in its occupation and 
annexation of Albania. The first major step was an agreement be- 
tween Rome and Tirane that allowed Italy to exploit Albania's 
mineral resources. Soon Albania's parliament agreed to allow the 
Italians to found the Albanian National Bank, which acted as the 
Albanian treasury even though its main office was in Rome and 
Italian banks effectively controlled it. The Albanians also award- 
ed Italian shipping companies a monopoly on freight and passenger 
transport to and from Albania. 

In late 1925, the Italian-backed Society for the Economic De- 
velopment of Albania began to lend the Albanian government funds 
at high interest rates for transportation, agriculture, and public- 
works projects, including Zogu's palace. In the end, the loans turned 
out to be subsidies. 

In mid- 1926 Italy set to work to extend its political influence 
in Albania, asking Tirane to recognize Rome's special interest in 
Albania and accept Italian instructors in the army and police. Zogu 
resisted until an uprising in the northern mountains pressured the 
Albanian leader to conclude the First Treaty of Tirane with the 
Italians in November 1926. In the treaty, both states agreed not 
to conclude any agreements with any other states prejudicial to their 
mutual interests. The agreement, in effect, guaranteed Zogu's po- 
litical position in Albania as well as the country's boundaries. In 
November 1927, Albania and Italy entered into a defensive alli- 
ance, the Second Treaty of Tirane, which brought an Italian general 
and about forty officers to train the Albanian army. Italian mili- 
tary experts soon began instructing paramilitary youth groups. Ti- 
rane also allowed the Italian navy access to the port of Vlore, and 
the Albanians received large deliveries of armaments from Italy. 



30 



Historical Setting 



Zog's Kingdom 

In 1928 Zogu secured the parliament's consent to its own disso- 
lution. A new constituent assembly amended the constitution, mak- 
ing Albania a kingdom and transforming Zogu into Zog I, "King 
of the Albanians." International recognition arrived forthwith, but 
many Albanians regarded their country's nascent dynasty as a tragic 
farce. The new constitution abolished the Senate, creating a 
unicameral National Assembly, but King Zog retained the dictatori- 
al powers he had enjoyed as President Zogu. Soon after his coro- 
nation, Zog broke off his engagement to Shefqet Bey Verlaci's 
daughter, and Verlaci withdrew his support for the king and be- 
gan plotting against him. Zog had accumulated a great number 
of enemies over the years, and the Albanian tradition of blood 
vengeance required them to try to kill him. Zog surrounded him- 
self with guards and rarely appeared in public. The king's loyalists 
disarmed all of Albania's tribes except for his own Mati tribesmen 
and their allies, the Dibra. Nevertheless, on a visit to Vienna in 
1931, Zog and his bodyguards fought a gun battle with would-be 
assassins on the Opera House steps. 

Zog remained sensitive to steadily mounting disillusion with Italy's 
domination of Albania. The Albanian army, though always less than 
15,000-strong, sapped the country's funds, and the Italians' monop- 
oly on training the armed forces rankled public opinion. As a coun- 
terweight, Zog kept British officers in the Gendarmerie despite strong 
Italian pressure to remove them. In 1931 Zog openly stood up to the 
Italians, refusing to renew the 1926 First Treaty of Tirane. In 1932 
and 1933, Albania could not make the interest payments on its loans 
from the Society for the Economic Development of Albania. In 
response, Rome turned up the pressure, demanding that Tirane 
name Italians to direct the Gendarmerie; join Italy in a customs 
union; grant Italy control of the country's sugar, telegraph, and elec- 
trical monopolies; teach the Italian language in all Albanian schools; 
and admit Italian colonists. Zog refused. Instead, he ordered the 
national budget slashed by 30 percent, dismissed the Italian mili- 
tary advisers, and nationalized Italian-run Roman Catholic schools 
in the northern part of the country. 

By June 1934, Albania had signed trade agreements with Yu- 
goslavia and Greece, and Mussolini had suspended all payments 
to Tirane. An Italian attempt to intimidate the Albanians by sending 
a fleet of warships to Albania failed because the Albanians only 
allowed the forces to land unarmed. Mussolini then attempted to 
buy off the Albanians. In 1935 he presented the Albanian govern- 
ment 3 million gold francs as a gift. 



31 



Albania: A Country Study 

Zog's success in defeating two local rebellions convinced Mus- 
solini that the Italians had to reach a new agreement with the Al- 
banian king. A government of young men led by Mehdi Frasheri, 
an enlightened Bektashi administrator, won a commitment from 
Italy to fulfill financial promises that Mussolini had made to Al- 
bania and to grant new loans for harbor improvements at Durres 
and other projects that would keep the Albanian government afloat. 
Soon Italians began taking positions in Albania's civil service, and 
Italian settlers were allowed into the country. 

Through all the turmoil of the interwar years, Albania remained 
Europe's most economically backward nation. Peasant farmers 
accounted for the vast majority of the Albanian population. Alba- 
nia had practically had no industry, and the country's potential 
for hydroelectric power was virtually untapped. Oil represented 
the country's main extractable resource. A pipeline between the 
Kucove oil field and the port at Vlore expedited shipments of crude 
petroleum to Italy's refineries after the Italians took over the oil- 
drilling concessions of all other foreign companies in 1939. Albania 
also possessed bitumen, lignite, iron, chromite, copper, bauxite, 
manganese, and some gold. Shkoder had a cement factory; Korce, 
a brewery; and Durres and Shkoder, cigarette factories that used 
locally grown tobacco. 

During much of the interwar period, Italians held most of the 
technical jobs in the Albanian economy. Albania's main exports 
were petroleum, animal skins, cheese, livestock, and eggs, and 
prime imports were grain and other foodstuffs, metal products, and 
machinery. In 1939 the value of Albania's imports outstripped that 
of its exports by about four times. About 70 percent of Albania's 
exports went to Italy. Italian factories furnished about 40 percent 
of Albania's imports, and the Italian government paid for the rest. 

Italian Occupation 

As Germany annexed Austria and moved against Czechoslovak- 
ia, Italy saw itself becoming a second-rate member of the Axis. 
After Hitler invaded Czechoslovakia without notifying Mussolini 
in advance, the Italian dictator decided in early 1939 to proceed 
with his own annexation of Albania. Italy's King Victor Emmanuel 
III criticized the plan to take Albania as an unnecessary risk. 

Rome, however, delivered Tirane an ultimatum on March 25, 
1939, demanding that it accede to Italy's occupation of Albania. 
Zog refused to accept money in exchange for countenancing a full 
Italian takeover and colonization of Albania, and on April 7, 1939, 
Mussolini's troops invaded Albania. Despite some stubborn 
resistance, especially at Durres, the Italians made short work of 



32 



Historical Setting 



the Albanians. Unwilling to become an Italian puppet, King Zog, 
his wife Queen Geraldine Apponyi, and their infant son Skander 
fled to Greece and eventually to London. On April 12, the Alba- 
nian parliament voted to unite the country with Italy. Victor Em- 
manuel III took the Albanian crown, and the Italians set up a fascist 
government under Shefqet Verlaci and soon absorbed Albania's 
military and diplomatic service into Italy's. 

After the German army had defeated Poland, Denmark, and 
France, a still -jealous Mussolini decided to use Albania as a spring- 
board to invade Greece. The Italians launched their attack on Oc- 
tober 28, 1940, and at a meeting of the two fascist dictators in 
Florence, Mussolini stunned Hitler with his announcement of the 
Italian invasion. Mussolini counted on a quick victory, but Greek 
resistance fighters halted the Italian army in its tracks and soon 
advanced into Albania. The Greeks took Korce and Gjirokaster 
and threatened to drive the Italians from the port city of Vlore. 
The chauvinism of the Greek troops fighting in Albania cooled the 
Albanians' enthusiasm for fighting the Italians, and Mussolini's 
forces soon established a stable front in central Albania. In April 
1941, Germany and its allies crushed both Greece and Yugosla- 
via, and a month later the Axis gave Albania control of Kosovo. 
Thus Albanian nationalists ironically witnessed the realization of 
their dreams of uniting most of the Albanian-populated lands during 
the Axis occupation of their country. 

World War II and the Rise of Communism, 1941-44 

Between 1941 and 1944, communist partisans and nationalist 
guerrillas fought Italian and German occupation forces, and more 
often each other, in a brutal struggle to take control of Albania. 
Backed by Yugoslavia's communists and armed with British and 
United States weaponry, Albania's partisans defeated the nation- 
alists in a civil war fought between Italy's capitulation in Septem- 
ber 1943 and the withdrawal of German forces from Albania in 
late 1944. Military victory, and not the lure of Marxism, brought 
the Albanian communists from behind the scenes to center stage 
in Albania's political drama. Although Albanian writers never tired 
of pointing out that the communists had "liberated" Albania 
without a single Soviet soldier setting foot on its territory, they often 
neglected to mention that the communist forces in Albania were 
organized by the Yugoslavs and armed by the West or that the 
Axis retreat from Albania was in response to military defeats out- 
side the country. 



33 



Albania: A Country Study 

The Communist and Nationalist Resistance 

Faced with an illiterate, agrarian, and mostly Muslim society 
monitored by Zog's security police, Albania's communist move- 
ment attracted few adherents in the interwar period. In fact, the 
country had no full-fledged communist party before World War 
II. After Fan Noli fled in 1924 to Italy and later the United States, 
several of his leftist proteges migrated to Moscow, where they af- 
filiated themselves with the Balkan Confederation of Communist 
Parties and through it the Communist International (Comintern), 
the Soviet-sponsored association of international communist par- 
ties. In 1930 the Comintern dispatched Ali Kelmendi to Albania 
to organize communist cells. But Albania had no working class for 
the communists to exploit, and Marxism appealed to only a minute 
number of quarrelsome, Western-educated, mostly Tosk, intellec- 
tuals and to landless peasants, miners, and other persons discon- 
tented with Albania's obsolete social and economic structures. 
Forced to flee Albania, Kelmendi fought in the Garibaldi Interna- 
tional Brigade during the Spanish Civil War and later moved to 
France, where together with other communists, including a stu- 
dent named Enver Hoxha, he published a newspaper. Paris be- 
came the Albanian communists' hub until Nazi deportations 
depleted their ranks after the fall of France in 1940. 

Enver Hoxha and another veteran of the Spanish Civil War, 
Mehmet Shehu, eventually rose to become the most powerful figures 
in Albania during the decades after the war. The dominant figure 
in modern Albanian history, Enver Hoxha rose from obscurity to 
lead his people for a longer time than any other ruler. Born in 1908 
to a Muslim Tosk landowner from Gjirokaster who returned to 
Albania after working in the United States, Hoxha attended the 
country's best college-preparatory school, the National Lycee in 
Korce. In 1930 he attended the university in Montpelier, France, 
but lost an Albanian state scholarship for neglecting his studies. 
Hoxha subsequently moved to Paris and Brussels. After return- 
ing to Albania in 1936 without earning a degree, he taught French 
for years at his former lycee and participated in a communist cell 
in Korce. When the war erupted, Hoxha joined the Albanian par- 
tisans. Shehu, also a Muslim Tosk, studied at Tirane's American 
Vocational School. He went on to a military college in Naples but 
was expelled for left-wing political activity. In Spain Shehu fought 
in the Garibaldi International Brigade. After internment in France, 
he returned to Albania in 1942 and fought with the partisans, gain- 
ing a reputation for brutality. 

In October 1941 , the leader of Communist Party of the Yugoslavia, 



34 



Historical Setting 



Josip Broz Tito, dispatched agents to Albania to forge the coun- 
try's disparate, impotent communist factions into a monolithic party 
organization. Within a month, they had established a Yugoslav- 
dominated Albanian Communist Party of 130 members under the 
leadership of Hoxha and an eleven-member Central Committee. 
The party at first had little mass appeal, and even its youth or- 
ganization netted few recruits. In mid- 1942, however, party lead- 
ers increased their popularity by heeding Tito's order to muffle 
their Marxist-Leninist propaganda and call instead for national 
liberation. In September 1942, the party organized a popular front 
organization, the National Liberation Movement (NLM), from 
a number of resistance groups, including several that were strong- 
ly anticommunist. During the war, the NLM's communist- 
dominated partisans, in the form of the National Liberation Army, 
did not heed warnings from the Italian occupiers that there would 
be reprisals for guerrilla attacks. Partisan leaders, on the contrary, 
counted on using the lust for revenge such reprisals would elicit 
to win recruits. 

A nationalist resistance to the Italian occupiers emerged in Oc- 
tober 1 942 . Ali Klissura and Midhat Frasheri formed the Western- 
oriented and anticommunist Balli Kombetar (National Union), a 
movement that recruited supporters from both the large landown- 
ers and peasantry. The Balli Kombetar opposed King Zog's return 
and called for the creation of a republic and the introduction of 
some economic and social reforms. The Balli Kombetar' s leaders 
acted conservatively, however, fearing that the occupiers would 
carry out reprisals against innocent peasants or confiscate the land- 
owners' estates. The nationalistic Geg chieftains and the Tosk 
landowners often came to terms with the Italians, and later the Ger- 
mans, to prevent the loss of their wealth and power. 

With the overthrow of Mussolini's fascist regime and Italy's sur- 
render in 1943, the Italian military and police establishment in Al- 
bania buckled. Albanian fighters overwhelmed five Italian divisions, 
and enthusiastic recruits flocked to the guerrilla forces. The com- 
munists took control of most of Albania's southern cities, except 
Vlore, which was a Balli Kombetar stronghold, and nationalists 
attached to the NLM gained control over much of the north. Brit- 
ish agents working in Albania during the war fed the Albanian 
resistance fighters with information that the Allies were planning 
a major invasion of the Balkans and urged the disparate Albanian 
groups to unite their efforts. In August 1943, the Allies convinced 
communist and Balli Kombetar leaders to meet in the village of 
Mukaj, near Tirane, and form a Committee for the Salvation of 
Albania that would coordinate their guerrilla operations. The two 



35 



Albania: A Country Study 

groups eventually ended all collaboration, however, over a disagree- 
ment on the postwar status of Kosovo. The communists, under 
Yugoslav tutelage, supported returning the region to Yugoslavia 
after the war, while the nationalist Balli Kombetar advocated keep- 
ing the province. The delegates at Mukaj agreed that a plebiscite 
should be held in Kosovo to decide the matter; but under Yugo- 
slav pressure, the communists soon reneged on the accord. A month 
later, the communists attacked Balli Kombetar forces, igniting a civil 
war that was fought for the next year, mostly in southern Albania. 

Germany occupied Albania in September 1943, dropping para- 
troopers into Tirane before the Albanian guerrillas could take the 
capital, and the German army soon drove the guerrillas into the 
hills and to the south. Berlin subsequently announced it would 
recognize the independence of a neutral Albania and organized an 
Albanian government, police, and military. The Germans did not 
exert heavy-handed control over Albania's administration. Rather, 
they sought to gain popular support by backing causes popular with 
Albanians, especially the annexation of Kosovo. Some Balli Kombe- 
tar units cooperated with the Germans against the communists, 
and several Balli Kombetar leaders held positions in the German- 
sponsored regime. Albanian collaborators, especially the Skander- 
beg SS Division, also expelled and killed Serbs living in Kosovo. 
In December 1943, a third resistance organization, an anticom- 
munist, anti-German royalist group known as Legality, took shape 
in Albania's northern mountains. Legality, led by Abaz Kupi, 
largely consisted of Geg guerrillas who withdrew their support for 
the NLM after the communists renounced Albania's claims on 
Kosovo. 

The Communist Takeover of Albania 

The communist partisans regrouped and, thanks to freshly sup- 
plied British weapons, gained control of southern Albania in Janu- 
ary 1944. In May they called a congress of members of the National 
Liberation Front (NLF, as the movement was by then called) at 
Permet, which chose an Anti-Fascist Council of National Libera- 
tion to act as Albania's administration and legislature. Hoxha be- 
came the chairman of the council's executive committee and the 
National Liberation Army's supreme commander. The communist 
partisans defeated the last Balli Kombetar forces in southern Al- 
bania by mid-summer 1944 and encountered only scattered 
resistance from the Balli Kombetar and Legality when they en- 
tered central and northern Albania by the end of July. The British 
military mission urged the nationalists not to oppose the com- 
munists' advance, and the Allies evacuated Kupi to Italy. Before 



36 



War memorial in Dunes 
Courtesy Fred Conrad 




the end of November, the Germans had withdrawn from Tirane, 
and the communists, supported by Allied air cover, had no problem 
taking control of the capital. A provisional government the com- 
munists had formed at Berat in October administered Albania with 
Enver Hoxha as prime minister, and in late 1944 Hoxha dispatched 
Albanian partisans to help Tito's forces rout Albanian nationalists 
in Kosovo. 

Albania stood in an unenviable position after World War II. 
Greece and Yugoslavia hungered for Albanian lands they had lost 
or claimed. The NLF's strong links with Yugoslavia's communists, 
who also enjoyed British military and diplomatic support, guaran- 
teed that Belgrade would play a key role in Albania's postwar order. 
The Allies never recognized an Albanian government in exile or 
King Zog, nor did they ever raise the question of Albania or its 
borders at any of the major wartime conferences. No reliable statis- 
tics on Albania's wartime losses exist, but the United Nations Relief 
and Rehabilitation Administration reported about 30,000 Albani- 
an war dead, 200 destroyed villages, 18,000 destroyed houses, and 
about 100,000 people left homeless. Albanian official statistics claim 
somewhat higher losses. 

Communist Albania 

Official Albanian writers and artists presented the history of com- 
munist Albania as the saga of a backward, besieged people marching 



37 



Albania: A Country Study 



toward a Stalinist Utopia. The actual story of communist Albania 
is, however, quintessentially dystopian: a bleak inventory of bloody 
purges and repression, a case study in betrayal and obsessive 
xenophobia, and a cacophony of bitter polemics. 

After five years of party infighting and extermination campaigns 
against the country's anticommunist opposition, Enver Hoxha and 
Mehmet Shehu emerged as the dominant figures in Albania. The 
duumvirate concentrated primarily on securing and maintaining 
their power base and secondarily on preserving Albania's indepen- 
dence and reshaping the country according to the procrustean 
precepts of orthodox Stalinism. In pursuit of these goals, the com- 
munist elite co-opted or terrorized the entire Albanian population 
into blind obedience, herding them into obligatory front organi- 
zations, bombarding them with propaganda, and disciplining them 
with a police force that completely disregarded legal, ethical, reli- 
gious, or political norms. Hoxha and Shehu dominated Albania 
and denied the Albanian people the most basic human and civil 
rights by pr anting themselves, as well as the communist party 
and state sf rity apparatus they controlled, as the vigilant defenders 
of the country's independence. After Albania's break with Yugo- 
slavia in late 1948, Albania was a client of the Soviet Union. Fol- 
lowing the Soviet Union's rapprochement with Tito after Stalin's 
death, Albania turned away from Moscow and found a new 
benefactor in China. When China's isolation ended in the 1970s, 
Albania turned away from its giant Asian patron and adopted a 
strict policy of autarky that brought the country economic ruin. 
But through it all, Hoxha engineered an elaborate cult of person- 
ality (see Glossary) whose spokesmen elevated his persona to the 
status of a god-man. When he died in 1985, few Albanian eyes 
were without tears. 

Consolidation of Power and Initial Reforms 

A tiny collection of militant communists moved quickly after 
World War II to subdue all potential political enemies in Albania, 
break the country's landowners and minuscule middle class, and 
isolate Albania from the noncommunist world. By early 1945, the 
communists had liquidated, discredited, or driven into exile most 
of the country's interwar elite. The internal affairs minister, Ko^i 
Xoxe, a pro-Yugoslav erstwhile tinsmith, presided over the trial 
and the execution of thousands of opposition politicians, clan chiefs, 
and members of former Albanian governments, who were con- 
demned as "war criminals." Thousands of their family members 
were imprisoned for years in work camps and jails and later exiled 
for decades to state farms built on reclaimed marshlands. The 



38 



Historical Setting 



communists' consolidation of control also produced a shift in politi- 
cal power in Albania from the northern Gegs to the southern Tosks. 
Most communist leaders were middle-class Tosks, and the party 
drew most of its recruits from Tosk-inhabited areas; the Gegs, with 
their centuries-old tradition of opposing authority, distrusted the 
new Albanian rulers and their alien Marxist doctrines. 

In December 1945, Albanians elected a new People's Assem- 
bly, but only candidates from the Democratic Front (previously 
the National Liberation Movement, then the National Liberation 
Front) appeared on the electoral lists, and the communists used 
propaganda and terror tactics to gag the opposition. Official bal- 
lot tallies showed that 92 percent of the electorate voted and that 
93 percent of the voters chose the Democratic Front ticket. The 
assembly convened in January 1946, annulled the monarchy, and 
transformed Albania into a "people's republic." After months of 
angry debate, the assembly adopted a constitution that mirrored 
the Yugoslav and Soviet constitutions. Then in the spring, the as- 
sembly members chose a new government. Hoxha, the Albanian 
Communist Party's first secretary, became prime minister, foreign 
minister, defense minister, and the army's commander in chief. 
Xoxe remained both internal affairs minister and the party's or- 
ganizational secretary. In late 1945 and early 1946, Xoxe and other 
party hard-liners purged moderates who had pressed for close con- 
tacts with the West, a modicum of political pluralism, and a delay 
in the introduction of strict communist economic measures until 
Albania's economy had more time to develop. Hoxha remained 
in control despite the fact that he had once advocated restoring re- 
lations with Italy and even allowing Albanians to study in Italy. 

The communists also undertook economic measures to expand 
their power. In December 1944, the provisional government adopt- 
ed laws allowing the state to regulate foreign and domestic trade, 
commercial enterprises, and the few industries the country pos- 
sessed. The laws sanctioned confiscation of property belonging to 
political exiles and "enemies of the people." The state also expropri- 
ated all German- and Italian-owned property, nationalized trans- 
portation enterprises, and canceled all concessions granted by 
previous Albanian governments to foreign companies. 

The government took major steps to introduce a Stalinist-style 
centrally planned economy in 1946. It nationalized all industries, 
transforme i foreign trade into a government monopoly, brought 
almost all domestic trade under state control, and banned land sales 
and transfers. Planners at the newly founded Economic Planning 
Commission emphasized industrial development, and in 1947 the 
government introduced the Soviet cost-accounting system. 



39 



Albania: A Country Study 

In August 1945, the provisional government adopted the first 
sweeping agricultural reforms in Albania's history. The country's 
100 largest landowners, who controlled close to a third of Alba- 
nia's arable land, had frustrated all agricultural reform proposals 
before the war. The communists' reforms were aimed at squeez- 
ing large landowners out of business, winning peasant support, and 
increasing farm output to avert famine. The government annulled 
outstanding agricultural debts, granted peasants access to inexpen- 
sive water for irrigation, and nationalized forest and pastureland. 
Under the Agrarian Reform Law, which redistributed about half 
of Albania's arable land, the government confiscated property be- 
longing to absentee landlords and people not dependent on agricul- 
ture for a living. The few peasants with agricultural machinery were 
permitted to keep up to forty hectares of land; the landholdings 
of religious institutions and peasants without agricultural machinery 
were limited to twenty hectares; and landless peasants and peasants 
with tiny landholdings were given up to five hectares, although they 
had to pay nominal compensation. Thus tiny farmsteads replaced 
large private estates across Albania. By mid- 1946 Albanian peasants 
were cultivating more land and producing higher corn and wheat 
yields than ever before. 

Albanian-Yugoslav Tensions 

Until Yugoslavia's expulsion from the Cominform (see Glossary) 
in 1948, Albania acted like a Yugoslav satellite, and Tito aimed 
to use his choke hold on the Albanian party to incorporate the en- 
tire country into Yugoslavia. After Germany's withdrawal from 
Kosovo in late 1944, Yugoslavia's communist partisans took pos- 
session of the province and committed retaliatory massacres against 
Albanians. Before World War II, the Communist Party of Yugo- 
slavia had supported transferring Kosovo to Albania, but Yugosla- 
via's postwar communist regime insisted on preserving the country's 
prewar borders. In repudiating the 1943 Mukaj agreement under 
pressure from the Yugoslavs, Albania's communists had consent- 
ed to restore Kosovo to Yugoslavia after the war. In January 1945, 
the two governments signed a treaty reincorporating Kosovo into 
Yugoslavia as an autonomous province. Shortly thereafter, Yu- 
goslavia became the first country to recognize Albania's provisional 
government. 

In July 1946, Yugoslavia and Albania signed a treaty of friend- 
ship and cooperation that was quickly followed by a series of techni- 
cal and economic agreements laying the groundwork for integrating 
the Albanian and Yugoslav economies. The pacts provided for co- 
ordinating the economic plans of both states, standardizing their 



40 



Historical Setting 



monetary systems, and creating a common pricing system and a 
customs union. So close was the Yugoslav-Albanian relationship 
that Serbo-Croatian became a required subject in Albanian high 
schools. Yugoslavia signed a similar friendship treaty with Bulgaria, 
and Marshal Tito and Bulgaria's Georgi Dimitrov talked of plans 
to establish a Balkan federation to include Albania, Yugoslavia, 
and Bulgaria. Yugoslav advisers poured into Albania's government 
offices and its army headquarters. Tirane was desperate for out- 
side aid, and about 20,000 tons of Yugoslav grain helped stave off 
famine. Albania also received US$26.3 million from the United 
Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration immediately after 
the war but had to rely on Yugoslavia for investment and develop- 
ment aid. 

The Yugoslav government clearly regarded investment in Al- 
bania as investment in the future of Yugoslavia itself. Joint 
Albanian-Yugoslav companies were created for mining, railroad 
construction, the production of petroleum and electricity, and in- 
ternational trade. Yugoslav investments led to the construction of 
a sugar refinery in Korce, a food-processing plant in Elbasan, a 
hemp factory at Rrogozhine, a fish cannery in Vlore, and a print- 
ing press, telephone exchange, and textile mill in Tirane. The Yu- 
goslavs also bolstered the Albanian economy by paying three times 
the world price for Albanian copper and other materials. 

Relations between Albania and Yugoslavia declined, however, 
when the Albanians began complaining that the Yugoslavs were 
paying too little for Albanian raw materials and exploiting Alba- 
nia through the joint stock companies. In addition, the Albanians 
sought investment funds to develop light industries and an oil 
refinery, while the Yugoslavs wanted the Albanians to concentrate 
on agriculture and raw-material extraction. The head of Albania's 
Economic Planning Commission and one of Hoxha's allies, Nako 
Spiru, became the leading critic of Yugoslavia's efforts to exert eco- 
nomic control over Albania. Tito distrusted Hoxha and the other 
intellectuals in the Albanian party and, through Xoxe and his 
loyalists, attempted to unseat them. 

In 1947 Yugoslavia's leaders engineered an all-out offensive 
against anti-Yugoslav Albanian communists, including Hoxha and 
Spiru. In May Tirane announced the arrest, trial, and conviction 
of nine People's Assembly members, all known for opposing Yu- 
goslavia, on charges of antistate activities. A month later, the Com- 
munist Party of Yugoslavia's Central Committee accused Hoxha 
of following "independent" policies and turning the Albanian peo- 
ple against Yugoslavia. Apparently attempting to buy support in- 
side the Albanian Communist Party, Belgrade extended Tirane 



41 



Albania: A Country Study 

US$40 million worth of credits, an amount equal to 58 percent 
of Albania's 1947 state budget. A year later, Yugoslavia's credits 
accounted for nearly half of the state budget. Relations worsened 
in the fall, however, when Spiru's commission developed an eco- 
nomic plan that stressed self-sufficiency, light industry, and agricul- 
ture. The Yugoslavs complained bitterly, and when Spiru came 
under criticism and failed to win support from anyone in the Al- 
banian party leadership, he committed suicide. 

The insignificance of Albania's standing in the communist world 
was clearly highlighted when the emerging East European nations 
did not invite the Albanian party to the September 1947 founding 
meeting of the Cominform. Rather, Yugoslavia represented Al- 
bania at Cominform meetings. Although the Soviet Union gave 
Albania a pledge to build textile and sugar mills and other facto- 
ries and to provide Albania agricultural and industrial machinery, 
Stalin told Milovan Djilas, at the time a high-ranking member of 
Yugoslavia's communist hierarchy, that Yugoslavia should "swal- 
low" Albania. 

The pro-Yugoslav faction wielded decisive political power in Al- 
bania well into 1948. At a party plenum in February and March, 
the communist leadership voted to merge the Albanian and Yu- 
goslav economies and militaries. Hoxha, to the core an opportunist, 
even denounced Spiru for attempting to ruin Albanian- Yugoslav 
relations. During a party Political Bureau (Politburo) meeting a 
month later, Xoxe proposed appealing to Belgrade to admit Alba- 
nia as a seventh Yugoslav republic. When the Cominform expelled 
Yugoslavia on June 28, however, Albania made a rapid about-face 
in its policy toward Yugoslavia. The move surely saved Hoxha from 
a firing squad and as surely doomed Xoxe to one. Three days later, 
Tirane gave the Yugoslav advisers in Albania forty-eight hours to 
leave the country, rescinded all bilateral economic agreements with 
its neighbor, and launched a virulent anti- Yugoslav propaganda 
blitz that transformed Stalin into an Albanian national hero, Hoxha 
into a warrior against foreign aggression, and Tito into an imperi- 
alist monster. 

Albania entered an orbit around the Soviet Union, and in Sep- 
tember 1948 Moscow stepped in to compensate for Albania's loss 
of Yugoslav aid. The shift proved to be a boon for Albania because 
Moscow had far more to offer than hard-strapped Belgrade. The 
fact that the Soviet Union had no common border with Albania 
also appealed to the Albanian regime because it made it more 
difficult for Moscow to exert pressure on Tirane. In November at 
the First Party Congress of the Albanian Party of Labor (APL), the 
former Albanian Communist Party renamed at Stalin's suggestion, 



42 



Historical Setting 



Hoxha pinned the blame for the country's woes on Yugoslavia and 
Xoxe. Hoxha had had Xoxe sacked as internal affairs minister in 
October, replacing him with Shehu. After a secret trial in May 
1949, Xoxe was executed. The subsequent anti-Titoist purges in 
Albania brought the liquidation of fourteen members of the party's 
thirty-one-person Central Committee and thirty-two of the 109 Peo- 
ple's Assembly deputies. Overall, the party expelled about 25 per- 
cent of its membership. Yugoslavia responded with a propaganda 
counterattack, canceled its treaty of friendship with Albania, and 
in 1950 withdrew its diplomatic mission from Tirane. 

Deteriorating Relations with the West 

Albania's relations with the West soured after the communist 
regime's refusal to allow free elections in December 1945. Alba- 
nia restricted the movements of United States and British person- 
nel in the country, charging that they had instigated anticommunist 
uprisings in the northern mountains. Britain announced in April 
that it would not send a diplomatic mission to Tirane, the United 
States withdrew its mission in November, and both the United 
States and Britain opposed admitting Albania to the United Na- 
tions (UN). The Albanian regime feared that the United States 
and Britain, which were supporting anticommunist forces in the 
civil war in Greece, would back Greek demands for territory in 
southern Albania; and anxieties grew in July when a United States 
Senate resolution backed the Greek demands. 

A major incident between Albania and Britain erupted in 1946 
after Tirane claimed jurisdiction over the channel between the Al- 
banian mainland and the Greek island of Corfu. Britain challenged 
Albania by sailing four destroyers into the channel. Two of the 
ships struck mines on October 22, 1946, and forty-four crew mem- 
bers died. Britain complained to the UN and the International 
Court of Justice, which, in its first case ever, ruled against Tirane. 

After 1946 the United States and Britain began implementing 
an elaborate covert plan to overthrow Albania's communist regime 
by backing anticommunist and royalist forces within the country. 
By 1949 the United States and British intelligence organizations 
were working with King Zog and the fanatic mountainmen of his 
personal guard. They recruited Albanian refugees and emigres from 
Egypt, Italy, and Greece; trained them in Cyprus, Malta, and the 
Federal Republic of Germany (West Germany); and infiltrated 
them into Albania. Guerrilla units entered Albania in 1950 and 
1952, but Albanian security forces killed or captured all of them. 
Kim Philby, a Soviet double agent working as a liaison officer be- 
tween the British intelligence service and the United States Central 



43 



Albania: A Country Study 

Intelligence Agency, had leaked details of the infiltration plan to 
Moscow, and the security breach claimed the lives of about 300 
infiltrators. 

A wave of subversive activity, including the failed infiltration 
and the March 1951 bombing of the Soviet embassy in Tirane, 
encouraged the Albanian regime to implement harsh internal secu- 
rity measures. In September 1952, the assembly enacted a penal 
code that required the death penalty for anyone over eleven years 
old found guilty of conspiring against the state, damaging state 
property, or committing economic sabotage. 

Albania and the Soviet Union 

Albania became dependent on Soviet aid and know-how after 
the break with Yugoslavia in 1948. In February 1949, Albania 
gained membership in the communist bloc's organization for coor- 
dinating economic planning, the Council for Mutual Economic As- 
sistance (Comecon). Tirane soon entered into trade agreements 
with Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Romania, and the Soviet 
Union. Soviet and East European technical advisers took up resi- 
dence in Albania, and the Soviet Union also sent Albania military 
advisers and built a submarine installation on Sazan Island. After 
the Soviet- Yugoslav split, Albania and Bulgaria were the only coun- 
tries the Soviet Union could use to funnel war materiel to the com- 
munists fighting in Greece. What little strategic value Albania 
offered the Soviet Union, however, gradually shrank as nuclear 
arms technology developed. 

Anxious to pay homage to Stalin, Albania's rulers implement- 
ed new elements of the Stalinist economic system. In 1949 Alba- 
nia adopted the basic elements of the Soviet fiscal system, under 
which state enterprises paid direct contributions to the treasury from 
their profits and kept only a share authorized for self-financed in- 
vestments and other purposes. In 1951 the Albanian government 
launched its first five-year plan, which emphasized exploiting the 
country's oil, chromite, copper, nickel, asphalt, and coal resources; 
expanding electricity production and the power grid; increasing 
agricultural output; and improving transportation. The govern- 
ment began a program of rapid industrialization after the APL's 
Second Party Congress and a campaign of forced collectivization 
of farmland in 1955. At the time, private farms still produced about 
87 percent of Albania's agricultural output, but by 1960 the same 
percentage came from collective or state farms. 

Soviet-Albanian relations remained warm during the last years 
of Stalin's life despite the fact that Albania was an economic lia- 
bility for the Soviet Union. Albania conducted all its foreign trade 



44 



Historical Setting 



with Soviet bloc countries in 1949, 1950, and 1951 and over half 
its trade with the Soviet Union itself. Together with its satellites, the 
Soviet Union underwrote shortfalls in Albania's balance of payments 
with long-term grants (see Dependence on the Soviet Union, 1948- 
60, ch. 3). 

Although far behind Western practice, health care and educa- 
tion improved dramatically for Albania's 1.2 million people in the 
early 1950s. The number of Albanian doctors increased by a third 
to about 150 early in the decade (although the doctor-patient ratio 
remained unacceptable by most standards), and the state opened 
new medical training facilities. The number of hospital beds rose 
from 1,765 in 1945 to about 5,500 in 1953. Better health care and 
living conditions produced an improvement in Albania's dismal 
infant mortality rate, lowering it from 112.2 deaths per 1 ,000 live 
births in 1945 to 99.5 deaths per 1,000 births in 1953 (see Medical 
Care and Nutrition, ch. 2). The education system, considered a 
tool for propagating communism and creating the academic and 
technical cadres necessary for construction of a socialist state and 
society, also improved dramatically. The number of schools, 
teachers, and students doubled between 1945 and 1950. Illiteracy 
declined from perhaps 85 percent in 1946 to 31 percent in 1950. 
The Soviet Union provided scholarships for Albanian students and 
supplied specialists and study materials to improve instruction in 
Albania. The Enver Hoxha University at Tirane was founded in 
1957, and the Albanian Academy of Sciences opened fifteen years 
later. Despite these advances, however, education in Albania 
suffered as a result of restrictions on freedom of thought. For ex- 
ample, educational institutions had scant influence on their own 
curricula, methods of teaching, or administration (see Education 
under Communist Rule, ch. 2). 

Stalin died in March 1953, and apparently fearing that the Soviet 
ruler's demise might encourage rivals within the Albanian party's 
ranks, neither Hoxha nor Shehu risked traveling to Moscow to at- 
tend his funeral. The Soviet Union's subsequent movement toward 
rapprochement with the hated Yugoslavs rankled the two Albani- 
an leaders. Tirane soon came under pressure from Moscow to copy, 
at least formally, the new Soviet model for a collective leadership. 
In July 1953, Hoxha handed over the foreign affairs and defense 
portfolios to loyal followers, but he kept both the top party post 
and the premiership until 1954, when Shehu became Albania's 
prime minister. The Soviet Union, responding with an effort to 
raise the Albanian leaders' morale, elevated diplomatic relations 
between the two countries to the ambassadorial level. 



45 



Albania: A Country Study 

Despite some initial expressions of enthusiasm, Hoxha and Shehu 
mistrusted Nikita Khrushchev's programs of "peaceful coexistence" 
and "different roads to socialism" because they appeared to pose 
the threat that Yugoslavia might again try to take control of Alba- 
nia. Hoxha and Shehu were also alarmed at the prospect that 
Moscow might prefer less dogmatic rulers in Albania. Tirane and 
Belgrade renewed diplomatic relations in December 1953, but Hox- 
ha refused Khrushchev's repeated appeals to rehabilitate posthu- 
mously the pro- Yugoslav Xoxe as a gesture to Tito. The Albanian 
duo instead tightened their grip on their country's domestic life 
and let the propaganda war with the Yugoslavs grind on. In 1955 
Albania became a founding member of the Warsaw Treaty Or- 
ganization (see Glossary), better known as the Warsaw Pact, the 
only military alliance the nation ever joined. Although the pact 
represented the first promise Albania had obtained from any of 
the communist countries to defend its borders, the treaty did nothing 
to assuage the Albanian leaders' deep mistrust of Yugoslavia. 

Hoxha and Shehu tapped the Albanians' deep-seated fear of Yu- 
goslav domination in order to remain in power during the thaw 
following the Twentieth Party Congress of the Communist party 
of the Soviet Union in 1956, when Khrushchev denounced Sta- 
lin's crimes in his "secret speech." Hoxha defended Stalin and 
blamed the Titoist heresy for the troubles vexing world communism, 
including the disturbances in Poland and the rebellion in Hungary 
in 1956. Hoxha mercilessly purged party moderates with pro-Soviet 
and pro- Yugoslav leanings, but he toned down his anti- Yugoslav 
rhetoric after an April 1957 trip to Moscow, where he won cancel- 
lation of about US$105 million in outstanding loans and about 
US$7.8 million in additional food assistance. By 1958, however, 
Hoxha was again complaining about Tito's "fascism" and "geno- 
cide" against Albanians in Kosovo. He also grumbled about a 
Comecon plan for integrating the East European economies, which 
called for Albania to produce agricultural goods and minerals in- 
stead of emphasizing development of heavy industry. On a twelve- 
day visit to Albania in 1959, Khrushchev reportedly tried to con- 
vince Hoxha and Shehu that their country should aspire to become 
socialism's "orchard." 

Albania and China 

Albania played a role in the Sino- Soviet conflict far outweigh- 
ing both its size and its importance in the communist world. By 
1958 Albania stood with China in opposing Moscow on issues of 
peaceful coexistence, de-Stalinization, and Yugoslavia's "separate 
road to socialism" through decentralization of economic life. The 



46 



Historical Setting 



Soviet Union, other East European countries, and China all offered 
Albania large amounts of aid. Soviet leaders also promised to build 
a large Palace of Culture in Tirane as a symbol of the Soviet peo- 
ple's ''love and friendship" for the Albanians. But despite these 
gestures, Tirane was dissatisfied with Moscow's economic policy 
toward Albania. Hoxha and Shehu apparently decided in May or 
June 1960 that Albania was assured of Chinese support, and they 
openly sided with China when sharp polemics erupted between Chi- 
na and the Soviet Union. Ramiz Alia, at the time a candidate- 
member of the Politburo and Hoxha' s adviser on ideological ques- 
tions, played a prominent role in the rhetorical batde. 

The Sino- Soviet split burst into the open in June 1960 at a Roma- 
nian Workers' Party congress, at which Khrushchev attempted to 
secure condemnation of Beijing. Albania's delegation, alone among 
the European delegations, supported the Chinese. The Soviet Union 
immediately retaliated by organizing a campaign to oust Hoxha 
and Shehu in the summer of 1960. Moscow cut grain deliveries 
to Albania during a drought, and the Soviet embassy in Tirane 
overtly encouraged a pro-Soviet faction in the APL to speak out 
against the party's pro-Chinese stand. Moscow also apparently was 
involved in a plot within the APL to unseat Hoxha and Shehu by 
force. But given their tight control of the party machinery, the army, 
and Shehu 's secret police, the Directorate of State Security (Drej- 
torija e Sigurimit te Shtetit — Sigurimi), the two Albanian leaders 
easily parried the threat. Five pro- Soviet Albanian leaders were 
eventually tried and executed. China immediately began making 
up for the cancellation of Soviet wheat shipments despite a pauci- 
ty of foreign currency and its own economic hardships. 

Albania again sided with China when Hoxha launched an at- 
tack on the Soviet Union's leadership of the international com- 
munist movement at the November 1960 Moscow conference of 
the world's eighty-one communist parties. Hoxha inveighed against 
Khrushchev for encouraging Greek claims to southern Albania, 
sowing discord within the APL and the army, and using econom- 
ic blackmail. "Soviet rats were able to eat while the Albanian peo- 
ple were dying of hunger," Hoxha railed, referring to purposely 
delayed Soviet grain deliveries. Communist leaders loyal to Moscow 
described Hoxha's performance as "gangsterish" and "infantile," 
and the speech extinguished any chance of an agreement between 
Moscow and Tirane. For the next year, Albania played proxy for 
China. Pro-Soviet communist parties, reluctant to confront Chi- 
na directly, criticized Beijing by castigating Albania. China, for 
its part, frequently gave prominence to the Albanians' fulminations 



47 



Albania: A Country Study 

against the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia, which Tirane referred 
to as a "socialist hell." 

Hoxha and Shehu continued their harangue against the Soviet 
Union and Yugoslavia at the APL's Fourth Party Congress in 
February 1961 . During the congress, the Albanian government an- 
nounced the broad outlines of the country's Third Five- Year Plan 
(1961-65), which allocated 54 percent of all investment to indus- 
try, thereby rejecting Khrushchev's wish to make Albania primarily 
an agricultural producer. Moscow responded by canceling aid pro- 
grams and lines of credit for Albania, but the Chinese again came 
to the rescue. 

After additional sharp exchanges between Soviet and Chinese 
delegates over Albania at the Communist Party of the Soviet 
Union's Twenty-Second Party Congress in October 1961, Khru- 
shchev lambasted the Albanians for executing a pregnant, pro- 
Soviet member of the Albanian party Politburo, and the Soviet 
Union finally broke diplomatic relations with Albania in Decem- 
ber. Moscow then withdrew all Soviet economic advisers and tech- 
nicians from the country, including those at work on the Palace of 
Culture, and halted shipments of supplies and spare parts for equip- 
ment already in place in Albania. In addition, the Soviet Union 
continued to dismantle its naval installations on Sazan Island, a 
process that had begun even before the break in relations. 

China again compensated Albania for the loss of Soviet economic 
support, supplying about 90 percent of the parts, foodstuffs, and 
other goods the Soviet Union had promised. Beijing lent the Al- 
banians money on more favorable terms than Moscow, and, un- 
like Soviet advisers, Chinese technicians earned the same low pay 
as Albanian workers and lived in similar housing. China also 
presented Albania with a powerful radio transmission station from 
which Tirane sang the praises of Stalin, Hoxha, and Mao Zedong 
for decades. For its part, Albania offered China a beachhead in 
Europe and acted as China's chief spokesman at the UN. To Al- 
bania's dismay, however, Chinese equipment and technicians were 
not nearly so sophisticated as the Soviet goods and advisers they 
replaced. Ironically, a language barrier even forced the Chinese 
and Albanian technicians to communicate in Russian. Albanians 
no longer took part in Warsaw Pact activities or Comecon agree- 
ments. The other East European communist nations, however, did 
not break diplomatic or trade links with Albania. In 1964 the Al- 
banians went so far as to seize the empty Soviet embassy in Ti- 
rane, and Albanian workers pressed on with construction of the 
Palace of Culture on their own. 



48 



Historical Setting 



The shift away from the Soviet Union wreaked havoc on Alba- 
nia's economy. Half of its imports and exports had been geared 
toward Soviet suppliers and markets, so the souring of Tirane's 
relations with Moscow brought Albania's foreign trade to near col- 
lapse as China proved incapable of delivering promised machinery 
and equipment on time. The low productivity, flawed planning, 
poor workmanship, and inefficient management at Albanian enter- 
prises became clear when Soviet and East European aid and advisers 
were withdrawn. In 1962 the Albanian government introduced an 
austerity program, appealing to the people to conserve resources, 
cut production costs, and abandon unnecessary investment. 

In October 1964, Hoxha hailed Khrushchev's fall from power, 
and the Soviet Union's new leaders made overtures to Tirane. It 
soon became clear, however, that the new Soviet leadership had 
no intention of changing basic policies to suit Albania, and rela- 
tions failed to improve. Tirane's propaganda continued for decades 
to refer to Soviet officials as "treacherous revisionists" and "trai- 
tors to communism," and in 1964 Hoxha said that Albania's terms 
for reconciliation were a Soviet apology to Albania and reparations 
for damages inflicted on the country. Soviet- Albanian relations 
dipped to new lows after the Warsaw Pact invasion of Czecho- 
slovakia in 1968, when Albania responded by officially withdraw- 
ing from the alliance. 

The Cultural and Ideological Revolution 

In the mid-1960s, Albania's leaders grew wary of a threat to their 
power by a burgeoning bureaucracy. Party discipline had eroded. 
People complained about malfeasance, inflation, and low-quality 
goods. Writers strayed from the orthodoxy of socialist realism, which 
demanded that art and literature serve as instruments of govern- 
ment and party policy. As a result, after Mao unleashed the Cul- 
tural Revolution in China in 1965, Hoxha launched his own 
Cultural and Ideological Revolution. The Albanian leader concen- 
trated on reforming the military, government bureaucracy, and 
the economy as well as on creating new support for his Stalinist 
system. The regime abolished military ranks, reintroduced politi- 
cal commissars into the military, and renounced professionalism 
in the army. Railing against a "white-collar mentality," the authori- 
ties also slashed the salaries of mid- and high-level officials, ousted 
administrators and specialists from their desk jobs, and sent such 
persons to toil in the factories and fields. Six ministries, including 
the Ministry of Justice, were eliminated. Farm collectivization 
spread to even the remote mountains. In addition, the government 
attacked dissident writers and artists, reformed its education system, 



49 



Albania: A Country Study 

and generally reinforced Albania's isolation from European cul- 
ture in an effort to keep out foreign influences. 

In 1967 the authorities conducted a violent campaign to extin- 
guish religious life in Albania, claiming that religion had divided 
the Albanian nation and kept it mired in backwardness. Student 
agitators combed the countryside, forcing Albanians to quit prac- 
ticing their faith. Despite complaints, even by APL members, all 
churches, mosques, monasteries, and other religious institutions 
had been closed or converted into warehouses, gymnasiums, and 
workshops by year's end. A special decree abrogated the charters 
by which the country's main religious communities had operated. 
The campaign culminated in an announcement that Albania had 
become the world's first atheistic state, a feat touted as one of En- 
ver Hoxha's greatest achievements (see Hoxha's Antireligious Cam- 
paign, ch. 2). 

Traditional kinship links in Albania, centered on the patriar- 
chal family, were shattered by the postwar repression of clan lead- 
ers, collectivization of agriculture, industrialization, migration from 
the countryside to urban areas, and suppression of religion. The 
postwar regime brought a radical change in the status of Albania's 
women. Considered second-class citizens in traditional Albanian 
society, women performed most of the work at home and in the 
fields. Before World War II, about 90 percent of Albania's wom- 
en were illiterate, and in many areas they were regarded as chat- 
tels under ancient tribal laws and customs. During the Cultural 
and Ideological Revolution, the party encouraged women to take 
jobs outside the home in an effort to compensate for labor short- 
ages and to overcome their conservatism. Hoxha himself proclaimed 
that anyone who trampled on the party's edict on women's rights 
should be "hurled into the fire" (see Social Structure under Com- 
munist Rule, ch. 2). 

The Break with China and Self-Reliance 

Albanian-Chinese relations had stagnated by 1970, and when 
the Asian superpower began to reemerge from isolation in the early 
1970s, Mao and the other Chinese leaders reassessed their com- 
mitment to tiny Albania. In response, Tirane began broadening 
its contacts with the outside world. Albania opened trade negotia- 
tions with France, Italy, and the recently independent Asian and 
African states, and in 1971 it normalized relations with Yugosla- 
via and Greece. Albania's leaders abhorred China's renewal of con- 
tacts with the United States in the early 1970s, and its press and 
radio ignored President Richard Nixon's trip to Beijing in 1972. 
Albania actively worked to reduce its dependence on China by 



50 



Albanian painting in 
the socialist-realist style 
Courtesy Charles Sudetic 




diversifying trade and improving diplomatic and cultural relations, 
especially with Western Europe. But Albania shunned the Con- 
ference on Security and Cooperation in Europe and was the only 
European country that refused to take part in the Helsinki Con- 
ference of July 1975. Soon after Mao's death in 1976, Hoxha criti- 
cized the new leadership as well as Beijing's pragmatic policy toward 
the United States and Western Europe. The Chinese responded 
by inviting Tito to visit Beijing in 1977 and ending assistance pro- 
grams for Albania in 1978. 

The break with China left Albania with no foreign protector. 
Tirane ignored calls by the United States and the Soviet Union 
to normalize relations. Instead, Albania expanded diplomatic ties 
with Western Europe and the developing nations and began stress- 
ing the principle of self-reliance as the keystone of the country's 
strategy for economic development. However, Hoxha' s cautious 
opening toward the outside world had stirred up nascent move- 
ments for change inside Albania. As the dictator's health slipped, 
muted calls arose for the relaxation of party controls and greater 
openness. In response, Hoxha launched a series of purges that re- 
moved the defense minister and many top military officials. A year 
later, Hoxha purged ministers responsible for the economy and 
replaced them with younger persons. 

As Hoxha' s health declined, the dictator began planning for an 
orderly succession. He worked to institutionalize his policies, hoping 



51 



Albania: A Country Study 

to frustrate any attempt his successors might make to venture from 
the Stalinist path he had blazed for Albania. In December 1976, 
Albania adopted its second Stalinist constitution of the postwar era. 
The document "guaranteed" Albanians freedom of speech, the 
press, organization, association, and assembly but subordinated 
these rights to the individual's duties to society as a whole. The 
constitution enshrined in law the idea of autarky and prohibited 
the government from seeking financial aid or credits or from form- 
ing joint companies with partners from capitalist or revisionist com- 
munist countries. The constitution's preamble also boasted that 
the foundations of religious belief in Albania had been abolished. 

In 1980 Hoxha turned to Ramiz Alia to succeed him as Alba- 
nia's communist patriarch, overlooking his long-standing comrade- 
in-arms, Mehmet Shehu. Hoxha first tried to convince Shehu to 
step aside voluntarily, but when this move failed Hoxha arranged 
for all the members of the Politburo to rebuke him for allowing 
his son to become engaged to the daughter of a former bourgeois 
family. Shehu allegedly committed suicide on December 18, 1981. 
It is suspected, however, that Hoxha had him killed. Hoxha, ob- 
viously fearing retaliation, purged the members of Shehu 's family 
and his supporters within the police and military. In November 
1982, Hoxha announced that Shehu had been a foreign spy work- 
ing simultaneously for the United States, British, Soviet, and Yu- 
goslav intelligence agencies in planning the assassination of Hoxha 
himself. "He was buried like a dog, ' ' the dictator wrote in the Al- 
banian edition of his book, The Titoites. 

Hoxha went into semiretirement in early 1983, and Alia as- 
sumed responsibility for Albania's administration. Alia traveled 
extensively around Albania, standing in for Hoxha at major events 
and delivering addresses laying down new policies and intoning 
litanies to the enfeebled president. When Hoxha died on April 1 1 , 
1985, he left Albania a legacy of repression, technological back- 
wardness, isolation, and fear of the outside world. Alia succeeded 
to the presidency and became legal secretary of the APL two days 
later. In due course, he became a dominant figure in the Albani- 
an media, and his slogans appeared painted in crimson letters on 
signboards across the country. The APL's Ninth Party Congress 
in November 1986 featured Alia as the party's and the country's 
undisputed leader. 

* * * 

Because Albania's fate is so tightiy interwoven with developments 
in the Balkans, it is recommended that readers unfamiliar with the 



52 



Historical Setting 



region first examine Barbara Jelavich's two- volume History of the 
Balkans, which provides an excellent overview as well as sections 
on Albania and the formation of the state. Robert Lee Wolffs The 
Balkans in Our Time is another useful survey of Balkan history. Edith 
Durham's High Albania and her other travelogues on Albania from 
the early twentieth century read like adventure novels and provide 
insight into the cultural underpinnings of the nationalism endem- 
ic to the Balkans. The best examination of the Albanian nation- 
alist movement in the late nineteenth century and the creation of 
Albania itself are Stavro Skendi's The Albanian National Awakening 
and Joseph Swire's Albania: The Rise of a Kingdom. Anton Logore- 
ci's The Albanians: Europe's Forgotten Survivors and Peter R. Prifti's 
Socialist Albania since 1944: Domestic and Foreign Developments are both 
solidly grounded surveys of Albania and its trials, especially after 
World War II. Postwar Albania, especially the last years of Enver 
Hoxha's regime, is well treated in Elez Bibera.y s Albania. No reader 
on Albanian affairs, in fact no student of the former communist 
world, should overlook With Stalin, The Titoites, or Enver Hoxha's 
other official works, which would be right at home shelved beside 
George Orwell's A nimal Farm and other works in the genre of dys- 
topian fiction. (For further information and complete citations, see 
Bibliography.) 



53 



Chapter 2. The Society and Its Environment 



Albanian family out for a stroll 



EUROPE'S LEAST DEVELOPED country, Albania is located 
along the central west coast of the Balkan Peninsula. Albania's Adri- 
atic and Ionian coasts are adjacent to shipping lanes that have been 
important since early Greek and Roman times. Tirane, the capi- 
tal and largest city, is less than an hour by air from eight other 
European capitals and barely more than two hours from the most 
distant of them. Yet, in large part because of its rugged terrain 
and, in recent times, its Stalinist regime, Albania remained isolat- 
ed from the rest of Europe until the early 1990s. 

Large expanses of mountainous and generally inaccessible ter- 
rain provided refuge for the Albanian nation and permitted its dis- 
tinctive identity to survive throughout the centuries, in spite of 
successive foreign invasions and long periods of occupation. Kin- 
ship and tribal affiliations, a common spoken language, and en- 
during folk customs provided continuity and a sense of community. 
Foreign influence was inevitable, however. Additions and modifi- 
cations to the language were made as a result of Latin, Greek, Slav- 
ic, and Turkish contacts. Lacking an organized religion as part 
of their Illyrian heritage, Albanians adopted the Muslim, Ortho- 
dox, and Roman Catholic faiths brought to them by their con- 
querors. 

Following the Italian and German occupations of World War 
II, Albania was subjected to more than forty-six years of authoritar- 
ian rule, from which it was emerging, materially and spiritually 
impoverished, in 1992. Its churches and mosques had been de- 
stroyed, the school system was a shambles, hospitals struggled with 
extreme shortages of basic medical supplies, and the hungry, de- 
jected people had come to rely entirely on foreign food aid and other 
forms of assistance. With the collapse of communism, a democrat- 
ically elected government faced the formidable challenge of end- 
ing decades of self-imposed isolation, restoring public order, and 
improving social conditions for the more than 3.3 million people 
of Albania. 

Physical Environment 

National Boundaries 

Albania, with a total area of 28,750 square kilometers, is slight- 
ly larger than the state of Maryland. It shares a 287-kilometer border 
with the Yugoslav republics of Montenegro and Serbia to the north, 



57 



Albania: A Country Study 

a 1 5 1 -kilometer border with the former Yugoslav republic of 
Macedonia to the north and east, and a 282-kilometer border with 
Greece to the south and southeast. Its coastline is 362 kilometers 
long. The lowlands of the west face the Adriatic Sea and the stra- 
tegically important Strait of Otranto, which puts less than 100 
kilometers of water between Albania and the heel of the Italian 
"boot." 

The distinct ethnic character of the Albanian people and their 
isolation within a generally definable area underscored their de- 
mands for independence in the early twentieth century. In some 
places, however, the mingling of different ethnic groups has com- 
plicated the determination of national borders. Kosovo, across the 
northeastern Albanian border, is a Serbian- governed province, 
although ethnic Albanians make up over 90 percent of its popula- 
tion. Many Albanians still regard Kosovo's status as an issue. 
Greeks and Albanians live in the mountains on both sides of the 
southeastern Albanian boundary. Neither Greece nor Albania is 
satisfied with the division of nations effected by their common 
border. 

With the exception of the coastiine, all Albanian borders are ar- 
tificial. They were established in principle at the 1912-13 confer- 
ence of ambassadors in London. The country was occupied by 
Italian, Serbian, Greek, and French forces during World War I, 
but the 1913 boundaries were essentially reaffirmed by the victorious 
states in 1921. The original principle was to define the borders in 
accordance with the best interests of the Albanian people and the 
nationalities in adjacent areas. The northern and eastern borders 
were intended, insofar as possible, to separate the Albanians from 
the Serbs and Montenegrins; the southeast border was to separate 
Albanians and Greeks; the valuable western Macedonian lake dis- 
trict was to be divided among the three states — Albania, Greece, 
and Yugoslavia — whose populations shared the area. When there 
was no compromise involving other factors, borderlines were chosen 
to make the best possible separation of national groups, connect- 
ing the best marked physical features available. 

Allowance was made for local economic situations, for example, 
to prevent separation of a village from its animals' grazing areas 
or from the markets for its produce. Political pressures also were 
a factor in the negotiations, but the outcome was subject to approval 
by powers having relatively abstract interests, most of which involved 
the balance of power rather than specific economic ambitions. 

Division of the lake district among three states required that each 
of them have a share of the lowlands in the vicinity. Such an artificial 
distribution, once made, necessarily affected the borderlines to the 



58 



The Society and Its Environment 



north and south. The border that runs generally north from the 
lakes, although it follows the ridges of the eastern highlands, stays 
sixteen to thirty-two kilometers west of the watershed divide. Be- 
cause negotiators at the London conference declined to use the 
watershed divide as the northeast boundary of the new state of Al- 
bania, a large Albanian population in Kosovo was incorporated 
into Serbia. 

In Albania's far north and the northeast mountainous sections, 
the border connects high points and follows mountain ridges through 
the largely inaccessible North Albanian Alps, known locally as 
Bjeshket e Namuna. For the most part, there is no natural bound- 
ary from the highlands to the Adriatic, although Lake Scutari and 
a portion of the Bune River south of it were used to mark Alba- 
nia's northwest border. From the lake district south and southwest 
to the Ionian Sea, the country's southeast border goes against the 
grain of the land, crossing a number of ridges instead of following 
them. 

Topography 

The 70 percent of the country that is mountainous is rugged and 
often inaccessible. The remainder, an alluvial plain, receives precipi- 
tation seasonally, is poorly drained, and is alternately arid or flood- 
ed. Much of the plain's soil is of poor quality. Far from offering 
a relief from the difficult interior terrain, the alluvial plain is often 
as inhospitable as the mountains. Good soil and dependable precipi- 
tation, however, are found in intermontane river basins, in the lake 
district along the eastern frontier, and in a narrow band of slightly 
elevated land between the coastal plains and the interior moun- 
tains (see fig. 3). 

In the far north, the mountains are an extension of the Dinaric 
Alps and, more specifically, the Montenegrin limestone plateau. 
Albania's northern mountains are more folded and rugged, 
however, than most of the plateau. The rivers have deep valleys 
with steep sides and arable valley floors. Generally unnavigable, 
the rivers obstruct rather than encourage movement within the al- 
pine region. Roads are few and poor. Lacking internal communi- 
cations and external contacts, a tribal society flourished in this area 
for centuries. Only after World War II were serious efforts made 
to incorporate the people of the region into Albanian national life. 

A low coastal belt extends from the northern boundary south- 
ward to the vicinity of Vlore. On average, it extends less than six- 
teen kilometers inland, but widens to about fifty kilometers in the 
Elbasan area in central Albania. In its natural state, the coastal 
belt is characterized by low scrub vegetation, varying from barren 



59 



Albania: A Country Study 

to dense. There are large areas of marshlands and other areas of 
bare, eroded badlands. Where elevations rise slightly and precipi- 
tation is regular — in the foothills of the central uplands, for 
example — the land is highly arable. Marginal land is reclaimed 
wherever irrigation is possible. 

Just east of the lowlands, the central uplands, called Qermenike 
by Albanians, are an area of generally moderate elevations, be- 
tween 305 and 915 meters, with a few points reaching above 1,520 
meters. Shifting along the faultline that roughly defines the western 
edge of the central uplands causes frequent, and occasionally se- 
vere, earthquakes. 

Although rugged terrain and points of high elevation mark the 
central uplands, the first major mountain range inland from the 
Adriatic is an area of predominantly serpentine rock (which de- 
rives its name from its dull green color and often spotted appear- 
ance), extending nearly the length of the country, from the North 
Albanian Alps to the Greek border south of Korce. Within this 
zone, there are many areas in which sharp limestone and sand- 
stone outcroppings predominate, although the ranges as a whole 
are characterized by rounded mountains. 

The mountains east of the serpentine zone are the highest in Al- 
bania, exceeding 2,740 meters in the Mai Korab range. Together 
with the North Albanian Alps and the serpentine zone, the eastern 
highlands are the most rugged and inaccessible of any terrain on 
the Balkan Peninsula. 

The three lakes of easternmost Albania — Lake Ohrid, Lake Pres- 
pa, and Prespa e Vogel — are remote and picturesque. Much of 
the terrain in their vicinity is not overly steep, and it supports a 
larger population than any other inland portion of the country. 
Albania's eastern border passes through Lake Ohrid; all but a small 
tip of Prespa e Vogel is in Greece; and the point at which the bound- 
aries of three states meet is in Lake Prespa. Each of the two larger 
lakes has a total surface areas of about 260 square kilometers, and 
Prespa e Vogel is about one-fifth as large. The surface elevation 
is about 695 meters for Lake Ohrid and 855 meters for the other 
two lakes. 

The southern mountain ranges are more accessible than the ser- 
pentine zone, the eastern highlands, or the North Albanian Alps. 
The transition to the lowlands is less abrupt, and the arable valley 
floors are wider. Limestone, the predominant mineral, is respon- 
sible for the cliffs and clear water of the coastiine southeast of Vlore. 
Erosion of a blend of softer rocks has provided the sediment that 
has caused wider valleys to form in the southern mountain area 
than those characteristic of the remainder of the country. This 



60 



The Society and Its Environment 



terrain encouraged the development of larger landholding, thus in- 
fluencing the social structure of southern Albania. 

Drainage 

Nearly all of the precipitation that falls on Albania drains into 
the rivers and reaches the coast without even leaving the country. 
In the north, only one small stream escapes Albania. In the south, 
an even smaller rivulet drains into Greece. Because the topographi- 
cal divide is east of the Albanian border with its neighbors, a con- 
siderable amount of water from other countries drains through 
Albania. An extensive portion of the basin of the Drini i Bardhe 
River, called Beli Drim by Serbs, is in the Kosovo area, across 
Albania's northeastern border. The three eastern lakes that Alba- 
nia shares with its neighboring countries, as well as the streams 
that flow into them, drain into the Drini i Zi. The watershed di- 
vide in the south also dips nearly seventy-five kilometers into Greece 
at one point. Several tributaries of the Vjose River rise in that area. 

With the exception of the Drini i Zi, which flows northward and 
drains nearly the entire eastern border region before it turns west- 
ward to the sea, most of the rivers in northern and central Albania 
flow fairly directly westward to the sea. In the process, they cut 
through the ridges rather than flow around them. This apparent 
geological impossibility occurs because the highlands originally were 
lifted without much folding. The streams came into existence at 
that time. The compression and folding of the plateau into ridges 
occurred later. The folding process was rapid enough in many in- 
stances to dam the rivers temporarily. The resulting lakes existed 
until their downstream channels became wide enough to drain them. 
This sequence created the many interior basins that are typically 
a part of the Albanian landform. During the lifetime of the tem- 
porary lakes, enough sediment was deposited in them to form the 
basis for fertile soils. Folding was rarely rapid enough to force the 
streams into radically different channels. 

The precipitous fall from higher elevations and the highly irregu- 
lar seasonal flow patterns that are characteristic of nearly all streams 
in the country reduce the economic value of the streams. They 
erode the mountains and deposit the sediment that created the 
lowlands and continues to augment them, but the rivers flood when 
there is local rainfall. When the lands are parched and need irri- 
gation, the rivers usually are dry. Their violence when they are 
full makes them difficult to control, and they are unnavigable. The 
Bune River is an exception. It is dredged between Shkoder and 
the Adriatic Sea and can be negotiated by small ships. In contrast 
to their history of holding fast to their courses in the mountains, 



63 



Albania: A Country Study 

the rivers constantly change channels on the lower plains, making 
waste of much of the land they create. 

The Drin River is the largest and most constant stream. Fed 
by melting snows from the northern and eastern mountains and 
by the more evenly distributed seasonal precipitation of that area, 
its flow does not have the extreme variations characteristic of nearly 
all other rivers in the country. Its normal flow varies seasonally 
by only about one-third. Along its length of about 282 kilometers, 
it drains nearly 5,957 square kilometers within Albania. As it also 
collects water from the Adriatic portion of the Kosovo watershed 
and the three border lakes (Lake Prespa drains to Lake Ohrid via 
an underground stream), its total basin encompasses about 15,540 
square kilometers. 

The Seman and Vjose are the only other rivers that are more 
than 160 kilometers long and have basins larger than 2,600 square 
kilometers. These rivers drain the southern regions and, reflect- 
ing the seasonal distribution of rainfall, are torrents in winter and 
nearly dry in the summer in spite of their length. This variable 
nature also characterizes the many shorter streams. In the sum- 
mer, most of them carry less than a tenth of their winter averages, 
if they are not altogether dry. 

Although the sediment carried by the mountain torrents con- 
tinues to be deposited, new deposits delay exploitation. Stream 
channels rise as silt is deposited in them and eventually become 
higher than the surrounding terrain. Shifting channels frustrate 
development in many areas. Old channels become barriers to proper 
drainage and create swamps or marshlands. In general, it is difficult 
to build roads or railroads across the lowlands or otherwise use the 
land. 

Irrigation has been accomplished on a small scale by Albanian 
peasants for many years. Large irrigation projects were not com- 
pleted, however, until after World War II. Such projects include 
the Vjose-Levan-Fier irrigation canal, with an irrigation capacity 
of 15,000 hectares, and the reservoir at Thane in Lushnje District, 
with an irrigation capacity of 35,100 hectares. In 1986 nearly 
400,000 hectares of land, or 56 percent of the total cultivated area, 
were under irrigation, compared with 29,000 hectares, or 10 per- 
cent of the total cultivated area, in 1938. 

Climate 

With its coastline facing the Adriatic and Ionian seas, its high- 
lands backed upon the elevated Balkan landmass, and the entire 
country lying at a latitude subject to a variety of weather patterns 
during the winter and summer seasons, Albania has a high number 



64 



The Society and Its Environment 



of climatic regions for so small an area. The coastal lowlands have 
typically Mediterranean weather; the highlands have a Mediter- 
ranean continental climate. In both the lowlands and the interior, 
the weather varies markedly from north to south. 

The lowlands have mild winters, averaging about 7°C. Sum- 
mer temperatures average 24°C, humidity is high, and the weather 
tends to be oppressively uncomfortable. In the southern lowlands, 
temperatures average about five degrees higher throughout the year. 
The difference is greater than five degrees during the summer and 
somewhat less during the winter. 

Inland temperatures are affected more by differences in eleva- 
tion than by latitude or any other factor. Low winter temperatures 
in the mountains are caused by the continental air mass that 
dominates the weather in Eastern Europe and the Balkans. North- 
erly and northeasterly winds blow much of the time. Average sum- 
mer temperatures are lower than in the coastal areas and much 
lower at higher elevations, but daily fluctuations are greater. Day- 
time maximum temperatures in the interior basins and river val- 
leys are very high, but the nights are almost always cool. 

Average precipitation is heavy, a result of the convergence of 
the prevailing airflow from the Mediterranean Sea and the con- 
tinental air mass. Because the convergence usually comes at the 
point where the terrain rises, the heaviest rain falls in the central 
uplands. Vertical currents initiated when the Mediterranean air 
is uplifted also cause frequent thunderstorms. Many of these storms 
are accompanied by high local winds and torrential downpours. 

When the continental air mass is weak, Mediterranean winds 
drop their moisture farther inland. When there is a dominant con- 
tinental air mass, cold air spills onto the lowland areas, which oc- 
curs most frequently in the winter. Because the season's lower 
temperatures damage olive trees and citrus fruits, groves and or- 
chards are restricted to sheltered places with southern and western 
exposures even in areas with high average winter temperatures. 

Lowland rainfall averages from 1,000 millimeters to more than 
1,500 millimeters annually, with the higher levels in the north. 
Nearly 95 percent of the rain falls in the winter. 

Rainfall in the upland mountain ranges is heavier. Adequate 
records are not available, and estimates vary widely, but annual 
averages are probably about 1,800 millimeters and are as high as 
2,550 millimeters in some northern areas. The seasonal variation 
is not quite as great in the coastal area. 

The higher inland mountains receive less precipitation than the 
intermediate uplands. Terrain differences cause wide local varia- 
tions, but the seasonal distribution is the most consistent of any area. 



65 



Albania: A Country Study 

The Albanian People 
Population 

The average annual growth rate of the Albanian population for 
the period 1960-90 was 2.4 percent, or approximately three to four 
times higher than that of other European countries. Population 
growth was actively encouraged by the government, which deemed 
it ' 'essential for the further strengthening and prosperity of socialist 
society." Albania had a population of 3,335,000 in July 1991, com- 
pared with 2,761,000 in mid-1981 and 1,626,000 in 1960. The most 
sparsely populated Balkan country until 1965, Albania attained a 
population density of 111 inhabitants per square kilometer in 
1989 — the highest in the Balkans. The 1991 growth rate was 1.8 
percent. 

In 1991 Albania had a birth rate of 24 per 1,000, and its death 
rate had declined from 14 per 1,000 in 1950 to 5 per 1,000. A 
concomitant of the reduced death rate was an increase in life 
expectancy. Official Albanian sources indicated that average life 
expectancy at birth increased from fifty-three years in 1950 to 
seventy-two years for males and seventy-nine years for females in 
1991. The population was among the most youthful in Europe, 
with an average age of twenty-seven years, and the fertility rate — 2.9 
children born per woman — was one of Europe's highest. 

Albania is the only country in Europe with more males than 
females. The disparity in the male-to-female ratio, which was 
1,055:1,000 in 1970, had increased to the point where males ac- 
counted for 51 .5 percent of the population in 1990. This discrepancy 
was attributed in part to a higher mortality rate among female in- 
fants, caused by neglect and the traditional deference accorded male 
progeny. Losses in World War II, estimated by the United Na- 
tions at 30,000 persons, or 2.5 percent of the population, appar- 
ently had little influence on the ratio of males to females. 

Ethnicity 

Gegs and Tosks 

Among ethnic Albanians are two major subgroups: the Gegs, who 
generally occupy the area north of the Shkumbin River, and the 
Tosks, most of whom live south of the river. The Gegs account for 
slightly more than half of the resident Albanian population. Ethnic 
Albanians are estimated to account for 90 percent of the population. 

The Gegs and Tosks use distinct dialects; there are also linguis- 
tic variations within subgroups. Well into the twentieth century, 
ethnic clans exercised extensive local authority, particularly in the 



66 



A beach outside the port town of Dunes 
Courtesy Charles Sudetic 

north. Some progress was made during the reign of King Zog I 
(r. 1928-39), however, toward bringing the clans under govern- 
ment control and eliminating blood feuds. 

After taking power in 1944, the communist regime imposed con- 
trols intended to eliminate clan rule entirely and waged a continu- 
ing struggle against customs and attitudes believed to impede the 
growth of socialism. Blood feuds were repressed. Party and govern- 
ment leaders, in their effort to develop national, social, and cul- 
tural solidarity in a communist society, publicly tended to ignore 
ethnic differences. 

Communist leader Enver Hoxha, first secretary of the Albanian 
Party of Labor and head of state until his death in 1985, came from 
the south. He received the bulk of his support during World War 
II from that area and frequently gave preference to persons and 
customs of Tosk origin. Most party and government executives 
were Tosk speakers and of Muslim background. The Gegs, who 
had dominated Albanian politics before 1945, were educationally 
disadvantaged by the adoption of a "standard literary Albanian 
language" based on the Tosk dialect. 

Because of their greater isolation in the mountainous areas of 
the north, the Gegs held on to their tribal organization and cus- 
toms more tenaciously than did the Tosks. As late as the 1920s, 



67 



Albania: A Country Study 



approximately 20 percent of male deaths in some areas of north- 
ern Albania were attributable to blood feuds. Under the unwrit- 
ten tribal codes, whose purview included the regulation of feuds, 
any blow, as well as many offenses committed against women, called 
for vengeance. Permitting a girl who had been betrothed in infancy 
to marry another, for example, could set off a blood feud. The besa, 
a pledge to keep one's word as a solemn obligation, was given in 
various situations and sometimes included promises to postpone 
quarrels. A man who killed a fellow tribesman was commonly 
punished by his neighbors, who customarily would burn his house 
and destroy his property. As fugitives from their own communi- 
ties, such persons were often given assistance by others. 

A man who failed to carry out the prescribed vengeance against 
a member of another tribe or that individual's relatives was sub- 
jected to ridicule. Insult was considered one of the gravest forms 
of dishonor, and the upholding of one's honor was the primary 
duty of a Geg. If the individual carried out the required act of ven- 
geance, he was in turn subject to retribution by the victim's rela- 
tives. Women were excluded from the feud, and when a man 
escorted a woman he too was considered inviolable. In other re- 
spects, however, a woman's lot in society generally was one of depri- 
vation and subjugation. 

The isolation from influences beyond his community and the 
constant struggle with nature tended to make the male Geg an ascet- 
ic. Traditionally his closest bonds were with members of his clan. 
Obstinate and proud, the Gegs had proved themselves ruthless and 
cruel fighters. Visitors from outside the clan generally were sus- 
pect, but every traveler was by custom accorded hospitality. 

Less isolated by geography and enjoying slightly less limited con- 
tact with foreign cultures, Tosks generally were more outspoken 
and. imaginative than Gegs. Contacts with invaders and foreign 
occupiers had left an influence, and before 1939 some Tosks had 
traveled to foreign countries to earn money to buy land, or to ob- 
tain an education. The clan or tribal system, which by the nine- 
teenth century was far less extensive in the south than in the north, 
began to disappear after independence was achieved in 1912. 

Greeks and Other Minorities 

The Greek minority, Albania's largest, has deep roots in the 
country's two southeasternmost districts, Sarande and Gjirokaster, 
in an area many Greeks call Northern Epirus (see fig. 1). Estimates 
of the size of the Greek population in 1989 varied from 59,000, 
or 1 percent of the total (from the official Albanian census), to 
266,800, or 8 percent (from data published by the United States 



68 



The Society and Its Environment 



government), to as high as 400,000, or 12 percent (from the "Epirot 
lobby" of Greeks with family roots in Albania). Greeks were harshly 
affected by the communist regime's attempts to homogenize the 
population through restrictions on the religious, cultural, educa- 
tional, and linguistic rights of minorities. Internal exile and other 
population movements served as instruments of policy to dilute con- 
centrations of Greeks and to deprive Greeks of their status as a 
recognized minority. Despite improvements in Greco- Albanian 
relations during the late 1980s and a significant increase in cross- 
border visits, reports of persecution, harassment, and discrimina- 
tion against Greeks, as well as other minorities, persisted. 

Smaller ethnic groups, including Bulgarians, Gypsies, Jews, 
Macedonians, Montenegrins, Serbs, and Vlachs, altogether account 
for about 2 percent of the total population. Persons of Macedoni- 
an and Bulgarian origin live mostly in the border area near Lake 
Prespa. The Vlachs, akin to modern Romanians, are most numer- 
ous in the Pindus Mountains and in the districts of Fier, Korce, 
and Vlore. A few persons of Serbian and Montenegrin derivation 
reside around the city of Shkoder. There are small Jewish com- 
munities in Tirane, Vlore, and Korce, and Gypsies are scattered 
throughout the country. 

Albanians in Kosovo 

Large numbers of ethnic Albanians live outside the country, in 
Italy, Greece, Turkey, the United States, and especially in Yu- 
goslavia or its former republics (see fig. 4). Estimates based on Yu- 
goslav census data indicated that the number of Albanians in 
Yugoslavia in 1981 totaled more than 1.7 million, or almost 8 per- 
cent of the country's total population, of which about 70 percent 
resided in Kosovo, a province of Serbia; 20 percent in Macedo- 
nia; and 9 percent in Montenegro. The predominantly Albanian 
Kosovo had the highest birthrate in Europe and one of the highest 
in the world: 29.9 per 1,000 in 1987. Persons under twenty-seven 
years old accounted for 60 percent of Kosovo's total population, 
and students — a reservoir of political ferment — over 30 percent. 
In 1981 only 12 percent of the Albanian population in Kosovo was 
employed. 

Student protests over living conditions in early 1981 led to bloody 
riots throughout Kosovo, which accelerated the exodus of Serbs 
and Montenegrins. The number of departures totalled 60,000 be- 
tween 1981 and 1991 . Haunted by the specter of secession, the Ser- 
bian government resorted to repressive measures, culminating in 
the revocation of Kosovo's autonomous status in July 1990. 
Hundreds of Albanian activists were tried and imprisoned, and 



69 



Albania: A Country Study 




Figure 4. Distribution of Ethnic Albanians on the Balkan Peninsula, 1992 

a campaign was launched to entice Serbs to settle in Kosovo. Ser- 
bian authorities suspended publication of the Albanian-language 
daily Rilindja, alleging that it had become a "mouthpiece" of Al- 
banian nationalists. A Serbian-language standard curriculum was 
introduced for all middle and secondary schools. The action led 
to protests by thousands of students and parents. As a result of 
the curriculum's implementation, many Albanian-language schools 
had to be closed. At Kosovo's University of Pristina, student place- 
ments were reserved, in disproportion to the population, for eth- 
nic Serbs and Montenegrins — many from outside Kosovo. (Even 
though a number of these reserved places were not filled in the fall 
of 1990, Albanian applicants were denied admission to the univer- 
sity.) Discrimination against Albanians seeking employment or 
housing was rampant. 

Languages and Dialects 

The Albanian language is spoken by nearly all inhabitants of 
Albania, as well as by the vast majority of the population of neigh- 
boring Kosovo. Greeks, Macedonians, and other ethnic groups in 
Albania use their ancestral languages, in addition to Albanian, 
to the extent that this right can be exercised. Ethnic minorities, 



70 



The Society and Its Environment 



according to the testimony of many emigres, were in the past for- 
bidden to speak their own languages in public. 

A member of the Indo-European family of languages, modern 
Albanian is derived from ancient Illyrian and Thracian. Additions 
and modifications were made as a result of foreign contacts, be- 
ginning in the pre-Christian era. The most significant of these 
changes were the result of Latin influence during the centuries of 
Roman domination, Italian influences resulting from trade with 
Venice during the Renaissance, and Italian hegemony over Alba- 
nia in more recent times. Contributions also were made by the 
Greeks, Turks, and Slavs. Because the first written documents in 
Albanian did not appear until the fifteenth century, tracing the early 
development of the language is difficult. 

Beginning in the fifteenth century and continuing over a period of 
some 450 years, the repressive policies of the Ottoman Empire rulers 
retarded language development. Writing in Albanian was forbidden, 
and only the Turkish or Greek languages could be used in schools. 
Emigre Albanians, particularly those living in Italy, helped keep 
the written forms of the language alive. Until the nineteenth cen- 
tury, the language was sustained in Turkish-dominated areas largely 
by verbal communication, including ballads and folk tales. 

By the early twentieth century, more than a dozen different al- 
phabets were being used by Albanians. Some were predominant- 
ly Latin, Greek, or Turko-Arabic. Many were a mixture of several 
forms. It was not until 1908 that a standardized orthography was 
adopted. The Latin-based alphabet of twenty-six letters, approved 
at that time by a linguistic congress at Monastir (now Bitola, in 
Macedonia), was made official by a government directive in 1924 
and continued to be in use in the early 1990s. 

The two principal Albanian dialects are Geg, spoken by about 
two-thirds of the people, including almost all Albanians in Koso- 
vo, and Tosk, used by the remaining third. Within each dialect, 
there are subdialects. Despite the variations that have developed 
in the many isolated communities, Albanians generally commu- 
nicate well with each other. 

During the 1920s and 1930s, the government attempted to es- 
tablish the dialect of the Elbasan area, which was a mixture of Geg 
and Tosk, as the official language. The local dialects persisted, 
however, and writers and even officials continued to use the di- 
alect of their association. After Hoxha acceded to power, the Tosk 
dialect became the official language of the country. Some scholars 
saw the imposition of "standard" Albanian as a political scheme 
to denigrate the Geg dialect and culture. 



71 



Albania: A Country Study 



Population 1955: 1.4 million 



not necessarily authoritative 





— International boundary 

District boundary 

National capital 
Populated place 



3.000 6,000 10,000 50,000 200,000 
Urban population 



25 Kilometers 



GREECE 



Ionian 
Sea 



Source: Based on information from Orjan Sjoberg, Rural Change and Development in Albania, 
Boulder, Colorado, 1991, 60-61. 



Figure 5. Population Density by District, 1955 



72 



The Society and Its Environment 



Boundary representation 
not necessarily authoritative 




25 Kilometers 

1 1 i 1 'i 1 i 1 1 1 



Source: Based on information from Orjan Sjoberg, Rural Change and Development in Albania, 
Boulder, Colorado, 1991, 60-61. 



Figure 6. Population Density by District, 1988 



73 



Albania: A Country Study 

Settlement Patterns 

In the early 1990s, Albania remained predominantly rural, with 
about 65 percent of the population living in villages or the coun- 
tryside. Urban dwellers, whose proportion of the national popula- 
tion had increased from one-fifth to almost one-third between 1950 
and 1970, accounted for about 34 percent in the 1980s (see fig. 
5; fig. 6). Rural-to-urban migration was contained as a result of 
the regime's aggressive programs, initiated during the Third Five- 
Year Plan (1961-65), to restrict urban growth, build up agricul- 
ture, and accelerate rural development. (The campaign to improve 
rural living conditions is best exemplified by the expansion of the 
electric-power network to every village in the country by the winter 
of 1970.) The average village grew from about 400 residents in 
1955 to nearly 700 in 1980. 

The most heavily settied areas are in the western part of the coun- 
try, in particular the fertile lowlands. In 1987 population density 
ranged from 30 persons per square kilometer in the eastern dis- 
trict of Kolonje to 281 persons per square kilometer in the coastal 
district of Durres. The proportion of urban dwellers was highest 
in the districts of Tirane (67 percent), Durres (49 percent), and 
Vlore (47 percent) (see table 2, Appendix). 

Several factors have contributed to the pattern of settlement. 
Large expanses of mountains and generally rugged terrain com- 
plicate construction of land transportation routes. In many areas, 
large concentrations of people cannot be supported because of poor 
soil and a lack of water during part of the year. Minerals and other 
natural resources generally are not readily accessible or are other- 
wise difficult to exploit. 

Of the sixty-six cities and towns in Albania, nine had popula- 
tions greater than 25,000 in 1987. Tirane, the capital and largest 
city, grew from about 60,000 inhabitants in 1945 to 226,000 in 
1987, largely because of the expansion of industry and government 
bureaucracy. Located on the inner margin of the coastal plain, the 
capital is surrounded by an area of relatively good soil. Tirane is 
the country's main political, industrial, educational, and cultural 
center. Other major towns are Durres, the principal port, Elba- 
san, Shkoder, and Vlore. About 44 percent of all towns had fewer 
than 5,000 inhabitants in 1987. 

Social System 

Traditional Social Patterns and Values 

The social structure of the country was, until the 1930s, basi- 
cally tribal in the north and semifeudal in the central and southern 



74 



The Society and Its Environment 



regions. The highlanders of the north retained their medieval pat- 
tern of life until well into the twentieth century and were consid- 
ered the last people in Europe to preserve tribal autonomy. In the 
central and southern regions, increasing contact with the outside 
world and invasions and occupations by foreign armies gradually 
weakened tribal society. 

Traditionally there have been two major subcultures in the Al- 
banian nation: the Gegs in the north and the Tosks in the south. 
The Gegs, partly Roman Catholic but mostly Muslim, lived until 
after World War II in a mountain society characterized by blood 
feuds and fierce clan and tribal loyalties. The Tosks, whose num- 
ber included many Muslims as well as Orthodox Christians, were 
less culturally isolated mainly because of centuries of foreign in- 
fluence. Because they had came under the rule of the Muslim landed 
aristocracy, the Tosks had apparently largely lost the spirit of in- 
dividuality and independence that for centuries characterized the 
Gegs, especially in the highlands. 

Until the end of World War II, society in the north and, to a 
much lesser extent, in the south, was organized in terms of kin- 
ship and descent. The basic unit of society was the extended fami- 
ly, usually composed of a couple, their married sons, the wives and 
children of the sons, and any unmarried daughters. The extended 
family formed a single residential and economic entity held together 
by common ownership of means of production and common in- 
terest in the defense of the group. Such families often included scores 
of persons, and, as late as 1944, some encompassed as many as 
sixty to seventy persons living in a cluster of huts surrounding the 
father's house. 

Extended families were grouped into clans whose chiefs preserved 
patriarchal powers over the entire group. The clan chief arranged 
marriages, assigned tasks, settled disputes, and set the course to 
be followed concerning essential matters such as blood feuds and 
politics. Descent was traced from a common ancestor through the 
male line, and brides usually were chosen from outside the clan. 
Clans in turn were grouped into tribes. 

In the Tosk regions of the south, the extended family was also 
the most important social unit, although patriarchal authority had 
been diluted by the feudal conditions usually imposed by the Muslim 
bey (see Glossary). 

Social leadership in the lowlands was concentrated in the hands 
of the semifeudal local tribal bey and pasha (see Glossary). The 
region around Tirane, for example, was controlled by the Zogolli, 
Toptani, and Vrioni families, all Muslims and all owners of ex- 
tensive agricultural estates. Ahmed Zogu, subsequently King Zog I, 



75 



Albania: A Country Study 



was from the Zogolli family. Originally pashas ranked slightly higher 
than beys, but differences gradually diminished and just the term 
bey remained in use. In the northern highlands, the bajraktar (see 
Glossary) was the counterpart of the bey and enjoyed similar heredi- 
tary rights to titles and positions. 

The Geg clans put great importance on marriage traditions. Ac- 
cording to custom, a young man always married a young woman 
from outside his clan but from within his tribe. In some tribes, 
marriages between Christians and Muslims were tolerated, but as 
a rule such unions were frowned upon. 

A variety of offenses against women could spark blood feuds. 
Many females were engaged to marry in their infancy by their par- 
ents. If later a woman did not wish to marry the man whom the 
parents had chosen for her and married another, in all likelihood 
a blood feud would ensue. Among the Tosks, religious beliefs and 
customs were more important than clan and tribal traditions in 
the regulation of marriage. 

For centuries, the family was the basic unit of the country's so- 
cial structure. To a great extent, the privacy of the family supplanted 
that of the state. Children were brought up to respect their elders 
and, above all, their father, whose word was law within the con- 
fines of his family. 

Upon the death of the father, family authority devolved upon 
his oldest son. The females of the household occupied an inferior 
position; they were confined at home, treated like servants, and 
not allowed to eat at the same table with the men. When the time 
came for sons to set up their own households, all parental property 
was distributed equally among them. Females owned no property 
and did not have the right to seek divorce. In northern Albania, 
the ancient Code of Lek permitted the husband "to beat his wife 
and to bind her in chains if she defies his words and orders." 

Geographical conditions affected Tosk social organization. 
Southern Albania's accessibility led to its coming much more firmly 
under Ottoman control. In turn, the Ottoman Empire's rule result- 
ed in the breakup of the large, independent, family landholdings 
and their replacement by extensive estates owned by powerful Mus- 
lims, each with his own retinue, fortresses, and large cohort of tenant 
peasants to work his lands. These landowners' allegiance to the 
sultans was secured by the granting of administrative positions either 
at home or elsewhere in the Ottoman Empire. 

The consolidation of the large estates was a continuous process. 
Landowning beys would entrap peasants into their debt and thus 
establish themselves as semifeudal patrons of formerly independent 
villagers. In this way, a large Muslim aristocracy developed in the 



76 



The Society and Its Environment 



south, while the majority of the Tosk peasants assumed the charac- 
teristics of an oppressed social class. As late as the 1930s, two-thirds 
of the best land in central and southern Albania belonged to large 
landowners. 

The tribal society of the Geg highlanders contrasted sharply with 
that of the passive, oppressed Tosk peasantry, most of whose mem- 
bers lived on the large estates of the beys and were often represented 
in the political arena by the beys themselves. The Tosk semifeudal 
society survived in the south well into the twentieth century. After 
independence was achieved in 1912, however, a small Tosk mid- 
dle class began to develop. In the early 1920s, that group, finding 
common interests with the more enlightened beys, played a major 
role in attempts to create a modern society. But in 1925 Ahmet 
Zogu curbed Tosk influence and cemented his power in the tribal 
north by governing through influential tribal and clan chiefs. To 
secure the loyalty of these chiefs, he placed them on the govern- 
ment payroll and sent several back to their tribes with the military 
rank of colonel. In 1928 a new constitution declared Albania a king- 
dom and Zogu the monarch. King Zog I ruled until the Italian 
invasion in 1939. 

Social Structure under Communist Rule 

Albania's general class structure at the time of the communist 
takeover in 1944 consisted of peasants and workers, who made up 
the lower class, and a small upper class. Representing over 80 per- 
cent of the total population, most peasants lived at no better than 
subsistence level. Nonagricultural workers numbered about 30,000 
persons, most of whom worked in the mines and in the small han- 
dicraft industries. The upper class, whose capital was invested most- 
ly in trade, commerce, and the Italian industrial concessions, 
comprised professional people and intellectuals, merchants with 
small and medium- sized enterprises, moneylenders, and well-to- 
do artisans. Industrialists also belonged to the upper class, although 
generally they owned very small industries and workshops. 

The clergy of the major religious denominations did not form 
a distinct social group. Members of the higher clergy typically were 
upper-class intellectuals; income from the fairly extensive church 
estates and state subsidies provided them with a comfortable, but 
not luxurious living. The rank-and-file clerics, however, were of 
peasant origin, and most of their parishes were as impoverished 
as the peasant households they served. 

A new social order was legally instituted in Albania with the adop- 
tion of the first communist constitution in March 1946, which creat- 
ed a "state of workers and laboring peasants" and abolished all 



77 



Albania: A Country Study 

ranks and privileges based on heredity (such as those enjoyed by 
tribal chiefs and the beys), position, wealth, or cultural standing. 
According to the constitution, all citizens were equal, regardless 
of nationality, race, or religion. 

Communist spokesmen listed three principal social classes as 
prevalent in the early years of the regime: the working class, the 
laboring peasants, and the so-called exploiting class, that is, the 
landowners in the agricultural economy and the bourgeoisie in 
trade. The "exploiting class" was liquidated during the early stages 
of the regime. The bourgeoisie was destroyed by the nationaliza- 
tion of industry, transport, mines, and banks, as well as by the 
establishment of a state monopoly on foreign commerce and state 
control over internal trade. The feudal landlords disappeared with 
the application of the agrarian reforms of 1945-46. These steps 
were followed by a program of rapid industrialization, whose result 
was the creation of a substantial working class. A program of 
agricultural collectivization had as its stated goal the formation of 
a homogeneous peasant class. Eventually all individual farmers were 
collectivized, the artisan collectives were converted to state indus- 
trial enterprises, the number of private traders was reduced to a 
minimum, and members of the clergy who avoided imprisonment 
or execution were sent to work either in industrial plants or agricul- 
tural collectives. 

Aside from the workers and peasants, the only group to which 
the Tirane authorities continued to give special attention was the 
intelligentsia. Usually termed a layer or stratum of the new social 
order, the intelligentsia was considered by the communist regime 
to be a special social group because of the country's need for pro- 
fessional, technical, and cultural talent. To justify this special 
attention, ideologists often quoted Lenin to the effect that "the in- 
telligentsia will remain a special stratum until the communist so- 
ciety reaches its highest development." 

The communist regime, however, transformed the social com- 
position of the intelligentsia. From 1944 to 1948, this transforma- 
tion involved purging a number of Western-educated intellectuals, 
whom the regime deemed potentially dangerous, as well as some 
high-level communist intellectuals who were suspected of having 
anti- Yugoslav or pro-Western sentiments. The remaining intellec- 
tuals were "reeducated" and employed in training new personnel 
for work in industry, government service, and the party bureau- 
cracy. As a rule, the subsequent generation of intellectuals toed 
the communist party line. A notable exception was Albania's fore- 
most writer, Ismail Kadare, who managed to walk a tightrope be- 
tween conformity and dissent until his defection to France in 1990. 



78 



The Society and Its Environment 



The theoretical egalitarian social order had little in common with 
the real class structure that existed in the country until 1991, when 
the communist party lost its monopoly on power. In fact, there 
existed different classes and gradations of rank and privilege, be- 
ginning with an upper class composed of the party elite, particu- 
larly Political Bureau (Politburo) and Central Committee members. 
In this category were also leaders of the state and mass organiza- 
tions, and high-ranking officers of the military and internal secu- 
rity forces. Top party officials and their families received special 
medical care, exclusive housing in a protected compound in Ti- 
rane, free food and liquor, vacation allowances, entertainment sub- 
sidies, and many other perquisites. At government expense, they 
purchased stylish French and Italian clothing, cosmetics, appliances, 
and vacation homes. An inquiry conducted by Albania's newly 
formed coalition government in 1991 concluded that "the former 
party leadership created for itself every opportunity to acquire 
privileges and enrich itself while the people were deceived by bo- 
gus and cynical propaganda about a struggle against privileges, 
luxury, and inequality." 

Just below the Politburo and the Central Committee were the 
vast party and government bureaucracies, professional people and 
intellectuals, and managers of state industrial and agricultural en- 
terprises. The top party elite was distinct from the lower party and 
state functionaries in terms of privileges, influence, authority, and 
responsibility. The group of lower party and state officials were 
bound together by the economic privileges and prestige that went 
with their positions and membership in, or sympathy for, the Al- 
banian Party of Labor, as the communist party was called from 
1948 to 1991. These officials all benefited from their association 
with the regime and enjoyed educational and economic advantages 
denied the rest of the population. Below this group were the rank- 
and-file party members, whose leadership role was constitutionally 
guaranteed. Aside from the prestige they enjoyed as party members, 
however, their privileges and economic benefits did not differ much 
from those of the next lower class in the social structure, the workers. 

Constituting an estimated 47 percent of the total population in 
1985, the working class (which, according to the official classifica- 
tion, included rural dwellers employed by state farms) was created 
after the communist seizure of power and composed almost wholly 
of peasants. Although under constant pressure to increase produc- 
tivity, exceed production norms, and perform "volunteer" labor, 
workers were entitled to an annual two- week paid vacation. State- 
subsidized rest houses for this purpose were established at various 
locations across the country. 



79 



Albania: A Country Study 

The regime's policy of complete agricultural collectivization 
deprived peasants of their landholdings, except for tiny personal 
plots, and required them to work on collective farms. Despite 
government attempts to equalize the wages of peasants and work- 
ers, peasant income remained approximately at subsistence level. 
One or two members of a peasant family would often engage in 
rural nonagricultural occupations, such as mining or forestry, that 
offered superior wages and benefits. 

Soon after adoption of the constitution of 1946, new laws were 
implemented regulating marriage and divorce. Marriages had to 
be contracted before an official of the local People's Council. Af- 
ter 1967, religious wedding ceremonies were forbidden. The mini- 
mum age for marriage was set at sixteen for women and eighteen 
for men. Because marriage was now supposed to be based on the 
full equality of both spouses, the concept of the father as head of 
the family, recognized by precommunist civil law and considered 
essential to Albanian family life, was officially deprived of legitima- 
cy. A husband and wife now had the legal right to choose their 
own residence and professions. However, marriage to foreigners 
was prohibited except with the permission of the government. 

The new divorce laws were designed to facilitate proceedings. 
The separation of spouses was made grounds for divorce, and in 
such cases a court could grant a divorce without considering relat- 
ed facts or the causes of the separation. Either spouse could ask 
for a divorce on the basis of incompatibility of character, continued 
misunderstandings, irreconcilable hostility, or for any other rea- 
son that disrupted marital relations to the point where cohabita- 
tion had become intolerable. Certain crimes committed by the 
spouse, especially so-called crimes against the state and crimes in- 
volving moral turpitude, were also recognized as grounds for 
divorce. In divorce cases, custody of children was granted to the 
parent "with better moral and political conditions for the children's 
proper education." 

About 27,400 marriages were contracted in 1987, about 8.9 per 
1,000 inhabitants. There were more than 2,500 divorces in the same 
year, or about 0.8 per 1,000 inhabitants. 

Article 41 of the 1976 constitution guaranteed women equal rights 
with men "in work, pay, holidays, social security, education, in 
all sociopolitical activity, as well as in the family." About 33 per- 
cent of the party's active members in 1988 were women, as well 
as over 40 percent of those elected to the people's councils. Nearly 
one-half of the country's students were women. Statistics showed 
that women accounted for 47 percent of the work force. 



80 




81 



Albania: A Country Study 

Despite progress during the communist regime, significant in- 
equalities remained. In 1990 only one full member of the ruling 
Politburo was a woman. In agriculture the predominantly female 
work force generally had male supervisors. Women were under- 
represented in certain professions, particularly engineering. Further- 
more, until 1991 , abortions were illegal and women were encouraged 
to have "as many children as possible," in addition to working 
outside the home. Some traditional practices, such as the presen- 
tation of dowries and arranged marriages, reportedly were con- 
doned by the authorities. 

Throughout its existence, the communist regime persisted in its 
campaign against the patriarchal family system. In the mountainous 
north, where vestiges of traditional tribal structures were particu- 
larly prevalent, the local patriarchs were detained and the property 
of their clans was appropriated. Patriarchalism, according to party 
propaganda, was the most dangerous internal challenge to Alba- 
nian society. 

Religion 
Before 1944 

One of the major legacies of nearly five centuries of Ottoman 
rule was the conversion of up to 70 percent of the Albanian popu- 
lation to Islam. Therefore, at independence the country emerged 
as a predominantly Muslim nation, the only Islamic state in Eu- 
rope. No census taken by the communist regime after it assumed 
power in 1944 indicated the religious affiliations of the people. It 
has been estimated that of a total population of 1,180,500 at the 
end of World War II, about 826,000 were Muslims, 212,500 were 
Orthodox, and 142,000 were Roman Catholics. The Muslims were 
divided into two groups: about 600,000 adherents of the Sunni (see 
Glossary) branch and more than 220,000 followers of a dervish order 
known as Bektashi (see Glossary), which was an offshoot of the 
Shia (see Glossary) branch. Bektashism was regarded as a toler- 
ant Muslim sect that also incorporated elements of paganism and 
Christianity. 

Christianity was introduced during Roman rule. After the divi- 
sion of the Roman Empire in 395, Albania became politically a 
part of the Eastern, or Byzantine, Empire, but remained ecclesiasti- 
cally dependent on Rome. When the final schism occurred in 1054 
between the Roman and Eastern churches, the Christians in 
southern Albania came under the jurisdiction of the ecumenical 
patriarch in Constantinople (see Glossary), and those in the north 
came under the purview of the papacy in Rome. This arrangement 



82 



The eighteenth-century mosque 
of Ethem Bey on Skanderbeg 
Square in the heart of Tiran'e 
Courtesy Charles Sudetic 



The mosque of Ethem Bey 
(close-up) 
Courtesy Charles Sudetic 



•III!" 




Albania: A Country Study 

prevailed until the Ottoman invasions of the fourteenth century, 
when the Islamic faith was introduced. The conversion of the peo- 
ple to Islam took many decades. 

In the mountainous north, the propagation of Islam was strongly 
opposed by Roman Catholics. Gradually, however, backwardness, 
illiteracy, the absence of an educated clergy, and material induce- 
ments weakened resistance. Coerced conversions sometimes oc- 
curred, especially when foreign Roman Catholic powers, such as 
the Venetian Republic, were at war with the Ottoman Empire. 
By the close of the seventeenth century, the Catholics in the north 
were outnumbered by the Muslims. 

After the Ottoman conquest, thousands of Orthodox Christians 
fled from southern Albania to Sicily and southern Italy, where their 
descendants, most of whom joined the Uniate Church (see Glos- 
sary), still constitute a sizable community. Large-scale forced con- 
versions of the Orthodox Christians who remained in Albania did 
not occur until the seventeenth century and the Russo-Turkish wars 
of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Pressure was put on 
the Orthodox Christians because the Ottoman Turks considered 
the members of this group sympathetic to Orthodox Russia. The 
situation of the Orthodox adherents improved temporarily after 
the Treaty of Kuchuk-Kainarji (1774), in which Russia was recog- 
nized as the protector of the Orthodox followers in the Ottoman 
Empire. The most effective method employed by the Ottoman 
Turks in their missionary efforts, especially in the central and 
southern parts of the country, was the creation of a titled Muslim 
class of pashas and beys who were endowed with both large es- 
tates and extensive political and administrative powers. Through 
their political and economic influence, these nobles controlled the 
peasants, large numbers of whom were converted to Islam either 
through coercion or the promise of economic benefits. 

In the period from independence to the communist seizure of 
power, the Muslim noble class constituted Albania's ruling elite, 
but this group never interfered with religious freedom, which was 
sanctioned by the various pre- World War II constitutions. These 
constitutions had stipulated that the country have no official religion, 
that all religions be respected, and that their freedom of exercise 
be assured. These provisions reflected the true feelings of the peo- 
ple who, whether Muslim, Orthodox, or Roman Catholic, were 
generally tolerant in religious matters. 

For generations, religious pragmatism was a distinctive trait of 
the Albanians. Even after accepting Islam, many people privately 
remained practicing Christians. As late as 1912, in a large num- 
ber of villages in the Elbasan area, most men had two names, a 



84 



The Society and Its Environment 



Muslim one for public use and a Christian one for private use. 
Adherence to ancient pagan beliefs also continued well into the 
twentieth century, particularly in the northern mountain villages, 
many of which were devoid of churches and mosques. A Roman 
Catholic intellectual, Vaso Pashko (1825-92), made the trenchant 
remark, later co-opted by Enver Hoxha, that "the religion of the 
Albanians is Albanianism." 

Hoxha's Antireligious Campaign 

A dogmatic Stalinist, Hoxha considered religion a divisive force 
and undertook an active campaign against religious institutions, 
despite the virtual absence of religious intolerance in Albanian so- 
ciety. The Agrarian Reform Law of August 1945, for example, 
nationalized most property of religious institutions, including the 
estates of monasteries, orders, and dioceses. Many clergy and be- 
lievers were tried, tortured, and executed. All foreign Roman 
Catholic priests, monks, and nuns were expelled in 1946. 

In January 1949, almost three years after the adoption of the 
first communist constitution, which guaranteed freedom of religion, 
the government issued a far-reaching Decree on Religious Com- 
munities. The law required that religious communities be sanc- 
tioned by the state, that they comply with "the laws of the state, 
law and order, and good customs," and that they submit all ap- 
pointments, regulations, and bylaws for approval by the govern- 
ment. Even pastoral letters and parish announcements were subject 
to the approval of party officials. Religious communities or branches 
that had their headquarters outside the country, such as the Jesuit 
and Franciscan orders, were henceforth ordered to terminate their 
activities in Albania. Religious institutions were forbidden to have 
anything to do with the education of the young because that had 
been made the exclusive province of the state. All religious com- 
munities were prohibited from owning real estate and from oper- 
ating philanthropic and welfare institutions and hospitals. 

Although there were tactical variations in Hoxha's approach to 
each of the major denominations, his overarching objective was 
the eventual destruction of all organized religion in Albania. In 
the late 1940s and 1950s, the regime achieved control over the Mus- 
lim faith by formalizing the split between the Sunni and Bektashi 
sects, eliminating all leaders who opposed Hoxha's policies, and 
exploiting those who were more tractable. Steps were also taken 
to purge all Orthodox clergy who did not yield to the demands of 
the regime, and to use the church as a means of mobilizing the 
Orthodox population behind government policies. The Roman 
Catholic Church, chiefly because it maintained close relations with 



85 



Albania: A Country Study 

the Vatican and was more highly organized than the Muslim and 
Orthodox faiths, became the principal target of persecution. Be- 
tween 1945 and 1953, the number of priests was reduced drasti- 
cally and the number of Roman Catholic churches was decreased 
from 253 to 100. All Catholics were stigmatized as fascists, although 
only a minority had collaborated with the Italian occupation authori- 
ties during World War II. 

The campaign against religion peaked in the 1960s. Inspired by 
China's Cultural Revolution, Hoxha called for an aggressive 
cultural-educational struggle against "religious superstition" and 
assigned the antireligious mission to Albania's students. By May 
1967, religious institutions had been forced to relinquish all 2,169 
churches, mosques, cloisters, and shrines in Albania, many of which 
were converted into cultural centers for young people. As the literary 
monthly Nendori reported the event, the youth had thus "created 
the first atheist nation in the world." 

The clergy were publicly vilified and humiliated, their vestments 
taken and desecrated. Many Muslim mullahs and Orthodox 
priests buckled under and renounced their "parasitic" past. More 
than 200 clerics of various faiths were imprisoned, others were forced 
to seek work in either industry or agriculture, and some were ex- 
ecuted or starved to death. The cloister of the Franciscan order 
in Shkoder was set on fire, which resulted in the death of four elderly 
monks. 

All previous decrees that had officially sanctioned the nominal 
existence of organized religion were annulled in 1967. Subsequently, 
the 1976 constitution banned all "fascist, religious, warmonger- 
ish, antisocialist activity and propaganda," and the penal code of 
1977 imposed prison sentences of three to ten years for "religious 
propaganda and the production, distribution, or storage of reli- 
gious literature." A new decree that in effect targeted Albanians 
with Christian names stipulated that citizens whose names did not 
conform to "the political, ideological, or moral standards of the 
state" were to change them. It was also decreed that towns and 
villages with religious names must be renamed. Thus, in the 
southern areas populated by ethnic Greeks, about ninety towns and 
places named after Greek Orthodox saints received secular names. 

Hoxha' s brutal antireligious campaign succeeded in eradicat- 
ing formal worship, but some Albanians continued to practice their 
faith clandestinely, risking severe punishment. Individuals caught 
with Bibles, icons, or other religious objects faced long prison sen- 
tences. Parents were afraid to pass on their faith, for fear that their 
children would tell others. Officials tried to entrap practicing 
Christians and Muslims during religious fasts, such as Lent and 



86 



The Society and Its Environment 



Ramadan, by distributing dairy products and other forbidden foods 
in school and at work, and then publicly denouncing those who 
refused the food. Clergy who conducted secret services were in- 
carcerated; in 1980, a Jesuit priest was sentenced to "life until 
death" for baptizing his nephew's newborn twins. 

The Revival of Religion 

In the 1980s, officials grudgingly began to concede that the cam- 
paign against religion had not been entirely successful, and indeed 
probably was counterproductive. A sociological study revealed that 
over 95 percent of the country's young people were choosing spouses 
of the same religious background, whereas, prior to the antireli- 
gious onslaught, marriages between Muslims and Christians were 
not uncommon. Albania's government also became more sensi- 
tive to the barrage of criticism from the international community. 
Hoxha's successor, Ramiz Alia, adopted a relatively tolerant stance 
toward religious practice, referring to it as "a personal and fam- 
ily matter. ' ' Emigre clergymen were permitted to reenter the coun- 
try in 1988 and officiate at religious services. Mother Teresa, an 
ethnic Albanian, visited Tirane in 1989, where she was received 
by the foreign minister and by Hoxha's widow. In December 1990, 
the ban on religious observance was officially lifted, in time to al- 
low thousands of Christians to attend Christmas services. 

Religious leaders estimated that 95 percent of all mosques and 
churches had been razed or gutted during the years of communist 
rule. A few had been spared and designated as "cultural monu- 
ments." Others, such as the Roman Catholic cathedral in Shkoder, 
were converted to sports arenas. The status of the clergy was equally 
appalling; the number of Roman Catholic priests, for example, 
had declined from 300 in 1944, when the communists took power, 
to thirty by early 1992. In 1992 plans were under way to restore 
the houses of worship, seminaries were being reopened, and several 
Islamic countries had sent teachers to provide religious instruction 
to young Albanian Muslims who knew virtually nothing about their 
religion. "Hoxha destroyed the human soul," an official of Alba- 
nia's new noncommunist government observed, adding, "This will 
take generations to restore." 

Education 

Precommunist Era 

As late as 1946, about 85 percent of the people were illiterate, 
principally because schools using the Albanian language had been 
practically nonexistent in the country before it became independent 



87 



Albania: A Country Study 

in 1912. Until the mid-nineteenth century, the Ottoman rulers had 
prohibited use of the Albanian language in schools. Turkish was 
spoken in the few schools that served the Muslim population, but 
these institutions were located mainly in cities and large towns. 
The schools for Orthodox Christian children were under the su- 
pervision of the Constantinople Ecumenical Patriarchate. The 
teachers at these schools usually were recruited from the Ortho- 
dox clergy, and the language of instruction was Greek. The first 
school known to use Albanian in modern times was a Franciscan 
seminary that opened in 1861 in Shkoder. 

From about 1880 to 1910, several Albanian patriots intent on 
creating a sense of national consciousness founded elementary 
schools in a few cities and towns, mostly in the south, but these 
institutions were closed by the Ottoman authorities. The advent 
of the Young Turks (see Glossary) movement in 1908 motivated 
the Albanian patriots to intensify their efforts, and in the same year 
a group of intellectuals met in Monastir to choose an Albanian al- 
phabet. Books written in Albanian before 1908 had used a mix- 
ture of alphabets, consisting mostiy of combinations of Latin, Greek, 
and Turkish- Arabic letters. 

The participants in the Monastir meeting developed a unified 
alphabet based on Latin letters. A number of textbooks soon were 
written in the new alphabet, and Albanian elementary schools 
opened in various parts of the country. In 1909, to meet the de- 
mand for teachers able to teach in the native tongue, a normal school 
was established in Elbasan. But in 1910, the Young Turks, fear- 
ing the emergence of Albanian nationalism, closed all schools that 
used Albanian as the language of instruction. 

Even after Albania became independent, schools were scarce. 
The unsettled political conditions caused by the Balkan wars and 
by World War I hindered the development of a unified education 
system. The foreign occupying powers, however, opened some 
schools in their respective areas of control, each power offering in- 
struction in its own language. A few of these schools, especially 
the Italian and French ones, continued to function after World War 
I and played a significant role in introducing Western educational 
methods and principles. Particularly important was the National 
Lycee of Korce, in which the language of instruction was French. 

Soon after the establishment in 1920 of a national government, 
which included a ministry of education, the foundation was laid 
for a national education system. Elementary schools were opened 
in the cities and some of the larger towns, and the Italian and French 
schools that had opened during World War I were strengthened. 
In the meantime, two important American schools were founded: 



88 



Unrestored Roman Catholic 
church converted by the 
communist regime into an 
industrial facility and reclaimed 
in 1991 by local Catholics 
Courtesy Charles Sudetic 



Priest with previously hidden 
religious artifacts, Shkoder 
Courtesy Fred Conrad 



Albania: A Country Study 

the American Vocational School in Tirane, established by the 
American Junior Red Cross in 1921; and the American Agricul- 
tural School in Kavaje, sponsored by the Near East Foundation. 
Several future communist party and government luminaries were 
educated in the foreign schools: Enver Hoxha graduated from the 
National Lycee in 1930, and Mehmet Shehu, who would become 
prime minister, completed studies at the American Vocational 
School in 1932. 

In the 1920s, the period when the foundations of the modern 
Albanian state were laid, considerable progress was made toward 
development of a genuinely Albanian education system. In 1933 
the Royal Constitution was amended to make the education of 
citizens an exclusive right of the state. All foreign-language schools, 
except the American Agricultural School, were either closed or na- 
tionalized. This move was intended to stop the rapid spread of 
schools sponsored directly by the Italian government, especially 
among Roman Catholics in the north. 

The nationalization of schools was followed in 1934 by a far- 
reaching reorganization of the entire education system. The new 
system called for compulsory elementary education from the ages 
of four to fourteen. It also provided for the expansion of second- 
ary schools of various kinds; the establishment of new technical, 
vocational, and commercial secondary schools; and the accelera- 
tion and expansion of teacher training. The obligatory provisions 
of the 1934 reorganization law were never enforced in rural areas 
because the peasants needed their children to work in the fields, 
and because of a lack of schoolhouses, teachers, and means of trans- 
portation. 

The only minority schools operating in Albania before World 
War II were those for the Greek minority living in the district of 
Gjirokaster. These schools too were closed by the constitutional 
amendment of 1933, but Greece referred the case to the Interna- 
tional Permanent Court of Justice, which forced Albania to reopen 
them. 

Pre-World War II Albania had no university-level education and 
all advanced studies were pursued abroad. Every year the state 
granted a limited number of scholarships to deserving high school 
graduates, who otherwise could not afford to continue their edu- 
cation. But the largest number of university students came from 
well-to-do families and thus were privately financed. The great 
majority of the students attended Italian universities because of their 
proximity and because of the special relationship between the Rome 
and Tirane governments. The Italian government itself, follow- 
ing a policy of political, economic, military, and cultural penetration 



90 




of the country, granted a number of scholarships to Albanian stu- 
dents recommended by its legation in Tirane. 

Soon after the Italians occupied Albania in April 1939, the edu- 
cation system came under complete Italian control. Use of the 
Italian language was made compulsory in all secondary schools, 
and the fascist ideology and orientation were incorporated into the 
curricula. After 1941, however, when guerrilla groups began to 
operate against the Italian forces, the whole education system be- 
came paralyzed. Secondary schools became centers of resistance 
and guerrilla recruitment, and many teachers and students went 
to the mountains to join resistance groups. By September 1943, 
when Italy capitulated to the Allies and German troops invaded 
and occupied Albania, education had come to a complete standstill. 

Education under Communist Rule 

Upon taking power in late 1944, the communist regime gave 
high priority to reopening the schools and organizing the whole 
education system to reflect communist ideology. The regime's ob- 
jectives for the new school system were to wipe out illiteracy in 



91 



Albania: A Country Study 

the country as soon as possible, to struggle against ' 'bourgeois sur- 
vivals" in the country's culture, to transmit to Albanian youth the 
ideas and principles of communism as interpreted by the party, 
and finally to educate the children of all social classes on the basis 
of these principles. The 1946 communist constitution made it clear 
that the regime intended to bring all children under the control 
of the state. All schools were soon placed under state management. 

The 1946 Education Reform Law provided specifically that 
Marxist-Leninist principles would permeate all school texts. This 
law also made the struggle against illiteracy a primary objective 
of the new school system. In September 1949, the government pro- 
mulgated a law requiring all citizens between the ages of twelve and 
forty who could not read to attend classes in reading and writing. 
Courses for illiterate peasants were established by the education 
sections of the people's councils. The political organs of the armed 
forces provided parallel courses for illiterate military personnel. 

In addition to providing for free seven-year obligatory elemen- 
tary schooling and four-year secondary education, the 1946 law 
called for the establishment of a network of vocational, trade, and 
teacher- training schools to prepare personnel, technicians, and 
skilled workers for various social, cultural, and economic activi- 
ties. Another education law adopted in 1948 provided for the fur- 
ther expansion of vocational and professional courses to train skilled 
and semiskilled workers and to increase the theoretical and profes- 
sional knowledge of the technicians. 

In the 1950s, the school system was given a thorough Soviet orien- 
tation in terms both of communist ideological propaganda and 
central government control. Secondary technical schools were es- 
tablished along the same lines. In 1951 three institutes of higher 
learning were founded: the Higher Pedagogic Institute, the Higher 
Poly technical Institute, and the Higher Agricultural Institute, all 
patterned on Soviet models. Most textbooks, especially those dealing 
with scientific and technical matters, were translations of Soviet 
materials. Courses for teacher preparation were established in which 
the Russian language, Soviet methods of pedagogy and psycholo- 
gy, and Marxist-Leninist dialectics were taught by Soviet instruc- 
tors. A team of Soviet educators laid the structural, curricular, and 
ideological foundations of Enver Hoxha University at Tirane, which 
was established in 1957. 

By 1960 the system of elementary and secondary education had 
evolved into an eleven-year program encompassing schools of gener- 
al education and vocational and professional institutes. The schools 
of general education consisted of primary grades one to four, in- 
termediate grades five to seven, and secondary grades eight to 



92 



The Society and Its Environment 



eleven. In October 1960, however, as Soviet- Albanian tensions were 
reaching the breaking point, the Albanian Party of Labor issued 
a resolution calling for the reorganization of the whole school sys- 
tem. The resolution's real aim was to purge the schools of Soviet 
influence and rewrite the textbooks. An additional year was ad- 
ded to the eleven-year general education program, and the whole 
school system was integrated more closely with industry in order 
to prepare Albanian youth to replace the Soviet specialists, should 
the latter be withdrawn, as they eventually were in 1961. 

A subsequent reform divided the education system into four 
general categories: preschool, general eight-year program, second- 
ary education, and higher education. The compulsory eight-year 
program was designed to provide pupils with the elements of ideo- 
logical, political, moral, aesthetic, physical, and military educa- 
tion. The new system lowered the entrance age for pupils from seven 
to six, and no longer separated primary and intermediate schools. 

Secondary education began with grade nine (usually at age four- 
teen), and ended with grade twelve. Secondary schools offered four- 
year general education programs or four-year vocational and 
professional programs, including industrial, agricultural, pedagogic, 
trade, arts, and health tracks, among others. Some programs last- 
ed only two years. 

The term of study in the institutes of higher education lasted 
three to five years, and tuition was also free at this level. Provision 
was made to expand higher education by increasing the number 
of full-time students, setting up new branches in places where there 
were no post-secondary institutes, and organizing specialized 
courses in which those who had completed higher education would 
be trained to become highly qualified technical and scientific cadres. 
All full-time graduate students had to serve a probationary period of 
nine months in industrial production and three months in military 
training, in addition to the prescribed military training in school. 

Adult education was provided in the same sequence as full-time 
schooling for younger students, with two exceptions. First, the eight- 
year general education segment was noncompulsory and was com- 
pressed into a six-year program that allowed for completion of the 
first four grades in two years. Second, those who wanted to pro- 
ceed to higher institutes after completing secondary school had to 
devote one year to preparatory study instead of engaging in produc- 
tion work, as full-time students did. 

Official statistics indicated that the regime made considerable 
progress in education. Illiteracy had been virtually eliminated by 
the late 1980s. From a total enrollment of fewer than 60,000 stu- 
dents at all levels in 1939, the number of people in school had grown 



93 



Albania: A Country Study 

to more than 750,000 by 1987; also, there were more than 40,000 
teachers in Albania. About 47 percent of all students were female. 
The proportion of eighth- grade graduates who continued with some 
type of secondary education increased from 39 percent in 1980 to 
73 percent in 1990, with no village reporting a figure lower than 
56 percent. 

A reorganization plan was announced in 1990 that would ex- 
tend the compulsory education program from eight to ten years. 
The following year, however, a major economic and political crisis 
in Albania, and the ensuing breakdown of public order, plunged 
the school system into chaos. Widespread vandalism and extreme 
shortages of textbooks and supplies had a devastating effect on school 
operations, prompting Italy and other countries to provide material 
assistance. The minister of education reported in September 1991 
that nearly one-third of the 2,500 schools below the university level 
had been ransacked and fifteen school buildings razed. Many 
teachers relocated from rural to urban areas, leaving village schools 
understaffed and swelling the ranks of the unemployed in the cities 
and towns; about 2,000 teachers fled the country. The highly struc- 
tured and controlled educational environment that the communist 
regime had painstakingly cultivated in the course of more than forty- 
six years was abruptly shattered. 

Health and Welfare 
Medical Care and Nutrition 

The government credited itself with a revolutionary transforma- 
tion of Albanian health standards. According to official statistics, 
the incidence of malaria and other debilitating diseases that affected 
large segments of the population before 1950 had been greatly 
reduced or eliminated, and average life expectancy had increased 
about twenty years by 1988 (see Population, this chapter). These 
successes were attributable primarily to large-scale inoculation pro- 
grams, the extermination or reduction in number of disease- 
spreading pests, and a general expansion of health services. In 1987 
Albania had about one physician or dentist per 577 inhabitants 
(compared to one per 8,154 inhabitants in 1950), and one hospital 
bed per 168 inhabitants (compared to one per 229 inhabitants in 
1950). All medical services were free. However, further improve- 
ments in health care were obstructed by malnutrition, unsanitary 
conditions, and a rapidly deteriorating economy. 

Although considerably decreased, the infant mortality rate — 
fifty deaths per 1,000 live births, according to data published by 
the United States government — was still much higher than that 



94 




95 



Albania: A Country Study 

of other Balkan states in 1991. Many of these deaths were caused 
by low birth weight. Because of food shortages and inadequate 
prenatal care, the proportion of premature births increased from 
7 to 1 1 percent between 1987 and early 1992. Hospitals lacked es- 
sential medicines and equipment; the University of Tirane Hospital, 
considered the best in the country, had only one incubator. 

The United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) reported that 
fifty-seven out of every 1 ,000 Albanian mothers died during preg- 
nancy or childbirth — roughly ten times the average rate in Western 
Europe. Contraceptives could not be obtained. Abortions, which 
were legalized in the summer of 1991, were performed with poor- 
ly sterilized instruments, as were Caesarean sections. Patients at 
Tirane 's maternity clinic sometimes had to share beds or bring their 
own food. 

The food supply — a perennial problem because of poor soil, oc- 
casional drought, primitive methods of cultivation, and a lack of 
readily accessible resources — did not keep pace with population 
growth under communist rule. The typical diet lacked protein and 
other vital elements. Families, regardless of size, received meager 
rations of meat, usually three to four kilograms per month. Eggs, 
cheese, sugar, and coffee also were rationed. Nonrationed goods, 
such as milk, green vegetables, and fruit, were often difficult to 
come by, and emigres reported having to stand in line many hours 
to purchase them. Farmers relied on small private plots of land 
to supplement their provisions. 

The economic disintegration of the late 1980s and early 1990s, 
hastened by a severe drought in the summer of 1990, a general 
strike the following year, and widespread food riots, compelled the 
country to become totally dependent on foreign food aid. Jolted 
by a flood of Albanian refugees, Italy delivered 83,000 tons of food 
to its eastern neighbor between September 1991 and January 1992. 
Additional emergency aid was received from Germany, Switzer- 
land, the United States, and other countries, as well as from inter- 
national relief agencies. 

Housing 

Official sources indicated that, between 1945 and 1985, nearly 
165,000 apartments were built by the state and more than 232,000 
houses were constructed by individuals with state assistance. 
Nevertheless, living quarters became increasingly overcrowded be- 
cause of rapid population growth. Families of four or more per- 
sons often lived in a single room. Newlyweds seeking a private home 
faced waiting periods of up to ten years. War and natural catas- 
trophes added to the burden. During World War II, some 35,000 



96 




97 



Albania: A Country Study 

dwellings had been destroyed. About 10,000 homes were damaged 
or destroyed by earthquakes in 1967 and 1969, and a powerful 
earthquake in 1979 demolished about 18,000 buildings and left 
100,000 people homeless. 

Rural houses were small, sparsely furnished, and simply con- 
structed of natural rock or stone. Most had one or two rooms, and 
a hearth or sometimes a stove for heating and cooking. Urban 
houses and apartments usually were small; many lacked central 
heating. Kitchens and toilet facilities in apartments had to be shared 
by three or four families. 

Social Insurance 

The noncontributory social insurance program, administered by 
state organizations, included retirement pensions and compensa- 
tion for disability and maternity leave. Funds for social insurance 
payments came from the state budget. Total expenditures increased 
from 13 million leks (for value of the lek — see Glossary) in 1950 
to almost 1.8 billion leks in 1987, according to official statistics. 

The government had granted retirement benefits to workers, in- 
cluding employees of state farms, since the late 1940s. Depending 
on job type, full retirement pensions (70 percent of an individu- 
al's average monthly earnings during any three consecutive years 
within the last ten years worked) were awarded to male workers 
between the ages of fifty and sixty after twenty to twenty-five years 
of work, and to female workers between the ages of forty-five and 
fifty-five after fifteen to twenty years of work. Pensions ranged from 
L350 to L700 (US$52 to US$104) monthly. Workers who reached 
retirement age but had worked less than the number of years re- 
quired to receive full pension payments were eligible for partial 
pensions, computed on the basis of time in service. After the full 
collectivization of agriculture in 1972, social insurance benefits were 
extended to the peasants. Retirement pensions were granted to male 
peasants at the age of sixty-five, after twenty-five years of work, 
and to female peasants at the age of fifty-five, after twenty years 
of work. 

Disability payments were made at the rate of 85 percent of aver- 
age earnings for the last month worked; persons with less than ten 
years' service received 70 percent; temporary or seasonal workers 
received less. When a disability was directiy work-related, com- 
pensation was granted at the rate of 95 percent for most trades and 
100 percent for miners. 

Pregnant women were entitled to a total of six months' leave. 
During that period, they received 75 to 95 percent of their regular 
earnings, depending on length of service, and were permitted to 



98 



The Society and Its Environment 



work reduced hours after returning to their jobs. Subsidized day- 
care facilities were provided for children six months of age or older. 
A woman could remain at home for limited periods to care for a 
sick child and collect 60 percent of her average pay. If it was con- 
sidered medically necessary for a mother to stay in the hospital with 
her sick child, she received 60 percent of her average pay during 
the entire hospital stay. 

In the early 1990s, the education and health care systems, in- 
deed the structure of Albanian society, continued to deteriorate. 
Albanians began looking toward democratic opposition groups to 
replace their communist rulers and to lead the country toward a 
modern, civil society. 

* * * 

Albania: A Socialist Maverick, by Elez Biberaj , contains a good over- 
view of contemporary Albanian society. A broad range of statisti- 
cal data on past and present social structure may be found in the 
Statistical Yearbook of the People's Socialist Republic of Albania, and oc- 
casionally also in articles published by the English-language month- 
lies New Albania and Albania Today. Albania's diverse cultural history 
is explored in Stavro Skendi's Balkan Cultural Studies. Conscience and 
Captivity: Religion in Eastern Europe, by Janice A. Broun, provides 
valuable insights into the country's religious heritage and describes 
the communist regime's campaign against religion. Human rights 
violations are meticulously documented by the Minnesota Law- 
yers International Human Rights Committee in its 1990 report, 
Human Rights in the People's Socialist Republic of Albania. For a com- 
prehensive analysis of Albania's postwar rural transformation, 
Orjan Sjoberg's Rural Change and Development in Albania is recom- 
mended. The RFE/RL Research Report (formerly Radio Free Eu- 
rope/Radio Liberty's Report on Eastern Europe) regularly reviews 
recent sociopolitical and socioeconomic developments in Albania 
and neighboring Kosovo. (For further information and complete 
citations, see Bibliography.) 



99 



Chapter 3. The Economy 



Albanian women working at computer terminals 



EUROPE'S POOREST NATION by every economic measure, 
Albania has been isolated and underdeveloped for centuries. 
Economists estimated the gross domestic product per capita at about 
US$450 in 1990, a figure that placed Albania below Lesotho and 
above Sri Lanka as the world's thirty-second least developed coun- 
try. Ironically, Albania possesses significant fossil fuel and mineral 
deposits, including oil and chromite, as well as a topography and 
annual rainfall suitable for generating hydroelectric power. Large- 
scale drainage projects begun after World War II turned marshes 
into fertile fields in Albania's lowlands, and the country's Mediter- 
ranean climate offers ideal conditions for cultivating fruits and 
vegetables. But Europe's highest birth rate and a mismanaged post- 
war industrial expansion, which failed to create enough produc- 
tive jobs to absorb the flood of people entering the work force, left 
Albania with an abundance of literate but unemployed and un- 
skilled workers. At the start of the 1990s, thousands of desperate 
Albanians fled abroad seeking jobs because of the wretched stan- 
dard of living and limited economic opportunity at home. 

Albania's communist economic system, with its strict central con- 
trols, egalitarian incentive system, and bias toward heavy indus- 
try, collapsed in the early 1990s, idling almost all of the country's 
production lines. In early 1992, the government was piecing 
together a new, market-based economic mechanism. The People's 
Assembly passed many new laws on privatization of state property 
and protection of free enterprise, private property, and foreign in- 
vestments, and lawyers drafted new civil and commercial codes, 
banking and tax laws, and labor, antitrust, and social security regu- 
lations. The structure of Albania's productive capacity was clear- 
ly going to change radically as the government broke up collective 
farms and privatized state lands and enterprises and as managers 
adjusted to free-market conditions. Nevertheless, agriculture was 
certain to remain the economy's cornerstone for the foreseeable 
future. The farm sector produced over 30 percent of Albania's net 
material product (see Glossary) and employed over 50 percent of 
the work force before the centrally planned economy buckled. 
However, farm output failed to keep pace with the demands of Al- 
bania's burgeoning population, and the entire sociopolitical sys- 
tem began to crumble when the farm sector could no longer supply 
adequate food to urban areas or raw materials to factories. 



103 



Albania: A Country Study 

The orthodox Stalinists of the ruling Albanian Party of Labor 
(APL) worshiped heavy industry and for decades offered it invest- 
ment monies, which usually flowed from foreign coffers. That in- 
vestment brought expansion and diversification to the country's 
entire industrial sector, but production was constrained by the mis- 
management and inefficiency that characterize communist systems. 
Before the communist economy imploded in 1990, industry account- 
ed for over 40 percent of Albania's net material product and em- 
ployed about 25 percent of the nation's work force. The industrial 
sector's most important branches were petroleum production, 
electric-power generation, mining, engineering, and light indus- 
try. The transportation and trade sectors had registered improve- 
ments in absolute terms over prewar levels of development, but 
both lagged behind European standards. 

Starting in the 1920s, Italy, Yugoslavia, the Soviet Union, and 
China in turn supported the Albanian economy before war or politi- 
cal spats prompted Tirane to break off each relationship. Enver 
Hoxha, first secretary of the APL, launched a policy of strict au- 
tarky when the country's last foreign patron, China, stopped aid 
infusions in 1978. Rapid population growth and lagging farm and 
industrial output, however, soon brought hunger and economic 
chaos. Tirane delayed significant economic reform until popular 
discontent threatened to explode into revolution. By 1991, a chain 
reaction of supply shortfalls had paralyzed the entire economy, and 
Albania cried out for humanitarian aid, this time from the West. 
Albania's opening to the world had a major impact on the free- 
dom of enterprises and people to participate in foreign trade, but 
the country's escalating foreign debt and currency problems ren- 
dered it incapable of importing badly needed materials and 
equipment. 

The totality of the collapse of Albania's communist economic 
system made introducing free-market reforms more difficult, in the 
view of some Western authorities, than in any other East European 
country. So critical was the need for heating fuel in the winter of 
1991-92 that people stripped wood from park benches, and the 
nurses at an orphanage in Shkoder locked up branches and twigs 
to keep them from thieves. Mobs stormed warehouses, factories, 
bakeries, flour mills, shops, and hotels, taking everything they could 
carry and destroying much of what they could not. Italian soldiers 
escorting food convoys found that they had to guard their own gar- 
bage trucks after armed gangs descended on the vehicles to pick 
through their contents. Thieves stole medicine, medical equipment, 
and even ambulances from hospitals. Fires in storehouses and fac- 
tories burned out of control because fire fighters had no equipment 



104 



The Economy 



in good repair. Opposition political leaders blamed the communist 
APL for instigating unrest in hopes of demonstrating to the im- 
pressionable that the isolation and apparent order of the old re- 
gime were better than the present chaos and the ways of the wider 
world. 

Despite Albania's economic dysfunction and backwardness, 
Western economists predicted that the country stood a good chance 
of prospering if its government could restore order and take ad- 
vantage of the country's fertile lands, relatively rich mineral re- 
sources, favorable location, potential for tourism, and generally 
literate work force. 

Albania's communist regime published few economic statistics, 
and Western scholars found that the sparse data made available 
were often neither accurate nor consistent. No statistical yearbook 
was issued for fourteen years after 1974, and data on performance 
of the oil industry were treated as a state secret after production 
began falling in the 1970s. Observers specializing in the Albanian 
economy have posited that the communist government released data 
only when performance results were positive and that data on ag- 
gregate economic growth were not published when they were close 
to or below the population growth rate. 

Economic Policy and Performance 

Despite significant progress in the twentieth century, Albania 
still lagged far behind the other European nations economically. 
A unified economy did not exist before the early 1920s, and the 
succession of foreign patrons had punctuated the country's erratic 
economic development since then. Heavy-handed domination by 
fascist Italy between 1925 and 1943 brought Albania scant eco- 
nomic progress. During its postwar rule of forty-six years, the Al- 
banian government turned first to Yugoslavia, then to the Soviet 
Union, and then to China for assistance in imposing a Stalinist 
economic system. Enver Hoxha and his proteges used economic 
policy primarily to maintain political power and only secondarily 
to stimulate growth. They insisted on rigid centralization and forced 
industrialization despite Albania's small size and lack of skilled work- 
ers, able administrators, and farmers capable of producing key raw 
materials and enough grain to feed the population. Albania's leaders 
prescribed autarky when China shut off aid in 1978, but galloping 
population growth and lagging farm output rendered the policy 
and the regime bankrupt. Tirane delayed radical economic reform 
until public discontent spilled onto the streets. By 1991, supply 
shortfalls had paralyzed the entire system. 



105 



Albania: A Country Study 

The Precommunist Albanian Economy 

The Albanians faced daunting developmental challenges when 
they declared independence in 1912 after some 500 years as part 
of the Ottoman Empire. Their medieval, patriarchal social struc- 
ture necessarily stunted the growth of anything beyond the most 
rudimentary economic relationships. Subsistence and feudal agricul- 
ture so dominated Albania's economy in the state's early years that 
even trained carpenters, joiners, and blacksmiths were in short sup- 
ply. Each family generally produced its own bread and meat as 
well as flax, wool, and leather. Many peasants used wooden plows 
and knew little about manures, artificial fertilizers, or crop rota- 
tion; most had no incentive to produce cash crops because they 
had no way to transport their output to a reliable market. A com- 
plete absence of good roads made interregional commerce almost 
impossible. The trip from Tirane to Vlore, for example, involved 
a sea journey; and although Shkoder's tradesmen exported skins 
by boat to Italy, their compatriots in Gjirokaster had to cross the 
Strait of Otranto to buy them from the Italians (see fig. 1). There 
were also no roads across the Greek or Yugoslav borders capable 
of handling commercial traffic. 

Albania's leaders lacked accurate data on the country's agricul- 
tural output, as well as on the extent and characteristics of its farm- 
land, livestock herds, and oil and mineral deposits. 

President Ahmed Zogu (later king Zog) sought Italian protec- 
tion for Albania in 1925, entering into economic agreements that 
Italy used to exploit Albania's oil, chromite, copper, and iron-ore 
reserves. Albania remained backward, however. In the late 1920s, 
agriculture contributed over 90 percent of the national income 
although only 8 percent of the country's land area was under cul- 
tivation and the entire farm sector could boast only thirty-two trac- 
tors (see table 3, Appendix). Even in 1938, Albania's industrial 
output amounted to less than 4 percent of national income, and 
annual per capita industrial production totaled about US$8. 
However, Italy did carry out extensive geological exploration, gaug- 
ing for the first time the extent of Albania's mineral wealth. The 
Italians also improved Albania's infrastructure, modernizing Ti- 
rane and constructing 1 ,500 kilometers of roads and several hundred 
bridges as well as Durres harbor. World War II dealt Albania's 
economy severe setbacks except in the mining sector, where the 
mineral-hungry Italian and German occupying forces actually add- 
ed to productive capacity. Durres harbor and many of the coun- 
try's roads and bridges, however, sustained damage during the war. 



106 



The Economy 



Imposition of the Stalinist System 

As World War II drew to a close, Albania's provisional govern- 
ment, run by the Albanian Communist Party, predecessor of the 
APL and a communist-dominated front organization, wasted lit- 
tle time in taking full control of the economy. In December 1944, 
shortly after coming to power, the regime adopted new laws provid- 
ing for strict state regulation of all industrial and commercial com- 
panies as well as foreign and domestic commercial relations. A 
"war-profits tax" and laws allowing the seizure of property be- 
longing to anyone labeled an "enemy of the people" weakened 
the country's minuscule middle class. In early 1945, the Albanian 
authorities confiscated Italian- and German-owned assets, revoked 
all foreign economic concessions, nationalized all public utilities 
and means of transportation, and created a network of government- 
sponsored consumer cooperatives. Heedless of Albania's needs and 
comparative advantages, the party leaders followed Stalinism's dic- 
tates and pushed the development of heavy industry over agricul- 
ture and light industry. 

The regime wooed the peasantry by curbing the power of the 
large landowners and granting concessions to peasants and 
sharecroppers. In January 1945, the new leaders canceled outstand- 
ing agricultural debts, slashed land-use charges by 75 percent, na- 
tionalized water resources, and offered peasants an opportunity to 
purchase irrigation water from the state at nominal fees. The Agrar- 
ian Reform Law of August 1945 destroyed what remained of the 
economic might of central and southern Albania's large landown- 
ers, replacing their sprawling estates with about 70,000 small farms. 
In effect, the government nationalized all forests and pasture lands 
and expropriated without compensation land belonging to individu- 
als who had nonfarm sources of income. The land law allowed farm- 
ers to keep up to forty hectares if they earned their income 
exclusively from farming and worked the land with machinery. The 
landholdings of religious institutions and farmers without machinery 
were limited to twenty hectares. Landless peasants and people who 
owned less than five hectares of property received up to five hect- 
ares per family and additional hectarage for married sons who were 
household members. In some cases, the law required the new land- 
owners to make nominal compensation to the former owners. 

Another agricultural reform law enacted in 1946 limited rural 
property holdings to five hectares of arable land. In April of that 
year, military tribunals began giving prison sentences to peasants 
caught hoarding grain. The state also nationalized farm tools and 
draft animals, banned land sales and transfers, and required 



107 



Albania: A Country Study 



peasants to obtain government permission to slaughter animals. 
In June the authorities ordered peasants to deliver relatively high 
quotas of grain crops to state procurement centers at low, official- 
ly set prices. Using carrot-and-stick techniques, the government 
attempted to persuade peasants to join collective farms. Despite 
the fact that collective-farm members paid lower taxes and had 
smaller production quotas, the campaign succeeded in convincing 
only 2,428 peasant families to join collective farms by 1948. The 
government admitted that the campaign had failed. Poor yields, 
purges, and coercion characterized the agricultural sector for the 
next three years, and grain shortages became a chronic problem. 

By early 1947, the government had in place much of the institu- 
tional framework required for a Stalinist economic system, nation- 
alizing industries and seizing control of foreign trade and most 
domestic commerce. A currency reform delivered another blow to 
the embatded middle class. In April 1947, the Economic Planning 
Commission drew up the country's first economic plan, a nine- 
month set of selected production targets for the mining, manufac- 
turing, and agricultural sectors denominated in terms of physical 
output rather than money. Albanian enterprises also began in- 
troducing the Soviet accounting system, and party zealots and 
teachers set about indoctrinating the population with the econom- 
ic catechism of Marxism-Leninism. 

Dependence on Yugoslavia, 1945-48 

After World War II, just as before, Albania's economy relied 
heavily on foreign assistance. The United Nations Relief and Re- 
habilitation Administration granted Albania US$26.3 million in 
aid during 1945 and 1946, including large amounts of seed and 
enough grain to feed a third of the population in 1945; the United 
States supplied US$20.4 million of the United Nations relief. In 
July 1946, Albania and Yugoslavia signed a treaty of friendship 
and cooperation, which provided for establishment of an agency 
that would coordinate the two countries' economic plans. The agree- 
ment also called for the creation of a customs union and the stan- 
dardization of the Albanian and Yugoslav monetary and pricing 
systems. A series of technical and economic agreements soon fol- 
lowed. In November, Tirane and Belgrade signed an economic 
cooperation accord and an agreement on the creation of jointly 
owned companies. At least on paper, these documents transformed 
Albania into a Yugoslav satellite; but their implementation quickly 
ran into snags. 

In early 1947, Tirane began voicing serious objections to the 
economic arrangements with Belgrade, taking exception to the way 



108 



The Economy 



the Yugoslavs weighed Albanian investment in the jointly owned 
companies and calculated the value of Albanian exports of raw 
material to Yugoslavia. The Albanians also charged that Yugosla- 
via's shipping enterprise was working to usurp control of their coun- 
try's foreign trade. Tirane sought investment funds to develop light 
industries and an oil refinery; Belgrade wanted the Albanians to 
concentrate on agriculture and the extraction of raw materials. 
Despite its objections to the economic relationship with Yugosla- 
via, in early 1948 Tirane launched a one-year economic plan 
designed to bring Albania's economy into step with Yugoslavia's. 
But Albania abruptly cut economic links with its neighbor after 
the Soviet Union expelled Yugoslavia from the Cominform (see 
Glossary) in June. 

Dependence on the Soviet Union, 1948-60 

After breaking with Yugoslavia, Albania turned toward the Soviet 
Union, forming a twelve-year relationship. In September 1948, 
Moscow stepped in to compensate for Albania's loss of Yugoslav 
aid, and Albania's factories quickly became dependent on Soviet 
technology. Anxious to pay tribute to Joseph Stalin personally, the 
authorities in Tirane implemented new elements of the Stalinist 
economic system. The regime introduced a Soviet-style three-step 
process for drawing up the national economic plan and adopted 
basic elements of the Soviet fiscal system, under which enterprises 
contributed to the state treasury from their residual income and 
retained only a share of earnings for authorized self-financed in- 
vestments and other purposes. The Ministry of Finance thus won 
the authority to set each enterprise's investment policy and regu- 
late its current activity through the state bank. 

The First Five-Year Plan (1951-55) emphasized mining and 
electric-power production as well as transportation improvements. 
The plan called for an increase in industrial production at an aver- 
age annual rate of 27.7 percent, including an increase of 26.5 per- 
cent in consumer-goods output and a 31 -percent rise in production 
of goods consumed by producers. Shortfalls in agricultural produc- 
tion during the first year doomed the entire plan. The farm sector 
failed to meet output targets for raw materials, leaving the indus- 
trial sector unable to meet targets for consumer goods. Industrial 
productivity also lagged because recently urbanized peasants had 
not had enough time to learn to operate factory equipment. The 
regime then realigned planning priorities in favor of agriculture 
and consumer- goods production. Over the plan period, annual in- 
dustrial output reportedly increased at an average of 22.8 percent; 
consumer-goods output rose 24.3 percent; and producer- goods 



109 



Albania: A Country Study 

output rose 20.7 percent. The Albanian economy's backwardness 
dashed the leadership's hopes of rapidly developing heavy indus- 
tries, specifically the mineral-processing and capital-goods manufac- 
turing branches, at the expense of the agricultural sector. Although 
their efforts brought partial success — the ratio between the values 
of agricultural and industrial production shifted from 82: 18 in 1938 
to 40:60 in 1953 — 70 percent of Albania's work force continued 
to till the soil. 

Having relatively easy access to capital because of generous Soviet 
aid, the regime redoubled its industrialization drive and tightened 
control of the agriculture sector. Albania conducted all its foreign 
commerce with the other communist nations between 1949 and 1951 
and over half its trade with the Soviet Union itself. The Soviet 
Union and its satellites wrote long-term "loans" to cover short- 
falls in Albania's balance of payments. Soviet and other East Eu- 
ropean aid at first dovetailed with the Albanian leadership's am- 
bition to industrialize the country. Tirane 's Second Five- Year Plan 
(1956-60) called for an annual increase of 14 percent in industrial 
production. Good results in 1956 and 1957 prompted the authori- 
ties to revise plan targets upward. Although the new goals went 
unattained, industrial production rose an average of about 17 per- 
cent annually over the five-year period. In 1955 private farms still 
produced about 87 percent of Albania's agricultural output, and 
the government reemphasized its farm collectivization drive. By 
1960, however, the proportion of output from collective and state 
farms was unchanged. The farm sector continued to suffer from 
low productivity and poor worker motivation. Soviet aid was re- 
quired, and wheat imports were depended on to meet as much as 
48 percent of Albanian need. 

Considering Enver Hoxha's obsession with heavy industry mis- 
guided, the new Soviet leadership balked at the idea of investing 
in large-scale industrial projects in Albania after Stalin's death in 
1953. The Soviet Union and other communist countries had provid- 
ed considerable investment and equipment to Tirane from 1948. 
Especially after 1955, however, this aid was designed primarily 
to integrate Albania's economy into a "division of labor" estab- 
lished by the Soviet-led Council for Mutual Economic Assistance 
(Comecon — see Glossary). Albania's allotted role demanded that 
it foster agricultural growth and increase the extraction of raw 
materials and the production of consumer goods. The leadership 
in Tirane considered Moscow's advice to concentrate on produc- 
tion of cash crops and raw materials a disparaging attempt to 
relegate Albania to the status of a Soviet colony in perpetuity. When 
Tirane began to tilt toward China, Moscow and its satellites offered 



110 



The Economy 



incentives to persuade Hoxha to remain in the Comecon fold. The 
disagreement over Albania's development policy soon became en- 
tangled in the animosities between the Soviet Union and China. 
In 1959 the two communist giants competing for Albania's hand 
poured capital into the tiny Balkan country so rapidly that it could 
not be absorbed. China extended Albania a US$13.8 million loan, 
Moscow followed with new credits totaling US$83.8 million, and 
other East European countries contributed another US$35 million. 

Dependence on China, 1961-78 

The Albanian leadership's fixation on heavy industry contributed 
significantly to its decision to break with the Soviet Union. Enver 
Hoxha gambled that China not only would be less likely than the 
Soviet Union to threaten his ascendancy but also would be more 
likely to provide investment money and equipment for his pet 
industrial projects. Albania's Third Five-Year Plan (1961-65) 
amounted to outright defiance of Soviet advice to concentrate main- 
ly on agriculture. The plan allocated industry 54 percent of all in- 
vestment and called for a 52-percent rise in overall industrial 
production, including increases of 54 percent and 50 percent in 
the output of producer and consumer goods, respectively. Moscow 
responded by canceling credits. The Albanian leaders foresaw that 
a cut in Soviet investment and aid would disrupt their economy 
but calculated that maintaining power and continuing industriali- 
zation would outweigh the failure of one five-year plan. The Soviet 
aid stoppage brought Albania's foreign trade to a near halt and 
delayed completion of major construction projects. Spare-parts 
shortages led to a 12.5-percent decline in labor productivity be- 
tween 1960 and 1963. China compensated Albania for the loss of 
Soviet credits and supplied about 90 percent of the spare parts, 
foodstuffs, and other goods Moscow had promised. The Chinese, 
however, proved unable to deliver promised machinery and equip- 
ment on time. 

In 1962 the Albanian government introduced an austerity pro- 
gram to keep the country's sputtering economy from stalling en- 
tirely. Official public appeals to cut costs and conserve resources 
and equipment netted a claimed 6 percent savings. The govern- 
ment also initiated a campaign of "popular consultation," asking 
individuals to submit suggestions for improving self-sufficiency. 
Years of state terror and still-rigid central control, however, had 
undermined the Albanians' willingness to assume personal respon- 
sibility. Party hard-liners, fearing they would lose their positions 
to a younger generation of more technically sophisticated managers, 
sabotaged cost-cutting measures. 



Ill 



Albania: A Country Study 



The government launched a program to increase the amount 
and quality of arable land by terracing hillsides and draining 
swamps. A new phase of collectivization was initiated. However, 
agricultural output grew only 22 percent over the entire five years 
instead of the planned 72 percent. Overall industrial production 
grew a mere 14 percent in 1964 and 1965. 

Fearful of a potential domestic power struggle and disappointed 
that heavy industry's output had failed to increase significantiy over- 
all between 1950 and 1965, the Albanian regime adjusted its 
Stalinist economic system in the mid-1960s. The government al- 
tered the planning mechanism in February 1966 by allowing for 
a small degree of worker participation in decision making and reduc- 
ing by 80 percent the number of indicators in the national eco- 
nomic plan. The leadership also decentralized decision-making 
power from the Council of Ministers to the ministries and local 
people's councils and included a slight devolution of control over 
enterprise investment funds. The system was specifically designed, 
however, to ensure that resources were allocated in accordance with 
a central plan. At no time, at least in public, did Albania's rulers 
entertain the notion — heretical to all orthodox Stalinists — that eco- 
nomic decision making should be devolved to the enterprises. 

In March 1966, an "open letter" from the Albanian Party of 
Labor to the Albanian people heralded radical changes in the 
egalitarian job allocation and wage regime. The authorities cut 
15,000 jobs from the state bureaucracy, replaced executives, and 
shunted managers and party officials into the countryside. The 
government then eliminated income taxes and reduced the salar- 
ies of highly paid workers. Wages varied by industry, but the ra- 
tio between the lowest and highest salaries was only about 1:2.5. 
Reviving a scheme originally launched in 1958, the government 
began assigning all employees to perform "productive" physical 
labor. People engaged in "mental work" — for example, intellec- 
tuals, teachers, and party and state bureaucrats — were required 
to toil in the fields for one month each year. Even high-school stu- 
dents took part in "voluntary" construction and agricultural work. 
Only the party elite remained unaffected by the egalitarian reforms. 

In emulation of China's Cultural Revolution, which was designed 
to rekindle the revolutionary fervor of the masses, Hoxha prescribed 
a regular rotation of managers to prevent "bureaucratic stagna- 
tion," "bureaucratism," "intellectualism," "technocratism," and 
a whole neologistic lexicon of other "negative tendencies." The 
campaign, called the Cultural and Ideological Revolution, also 
prescribed the replacement of men with women in the party and 
state administrations. 



112 



The Economy 



The government's economic adjustments militated against effi- 
ciency. Workers, who were given a voice in planning, lobbied for 
the easiest possible production targets and worked to overfulfill them 
in order to earn bonuses. But because one year's output figures 
became the basis for the next year's targets, they tried to limit over- 
fulfillment to prevent the imposition of difficult targets in the next 
planning period. The government's campaign to send office work- 
ers out to the fields, mines, and factories encountered resistance. 
The policies of guaranteed full employment and extensive growth — 
expanding productive capacity rather than squeezing more from 
existing capacity — made huge numbers of workers redundant. The 
low quality and quantity of consumer goods and virtually flat 
income-distribution curve dampened incentive. Workers dealt in 
pilfered state property and rested at their official jobs in order to 
moonlight illegally. Although the government had herded all arti- 
sans into cooperatives by 1959, many craftsmen, including tailors, 
carpenters, and clothing dealers, earned undeclared income through 
private work. Black-market construction gangs even performed 
work at factory sites and collective farms for directors desperate 
to meet plan targets. 

In the late 1960s, thanks mainly to massive capital inflows from 
China, the Albanian economy expanded. The Fourth Five- Year 
Plan (1966-70) called for an increase of about 50 percent in over- 
all industrial production, with producer- goods production increasing 
by 10.8 percent annually and consumer-goods output rising 6.2 
percent. Most sectors exceeded plan targets. Heavy industry's share 
of overall industrial production rose from 26 percent in 1965 to 
38.5 percent in 1970, the largest increase registered in any five- 
year period in Albania's history (see table 4, Appendix). In 1967 
the government launched a "scientific and technical revolution" 
aimed at improving self-sufficiency. For the first time, the Albani- 
an Party of Labor made a serious attempt to take into account 
Albania's natural resources and other competitive advantages while 
planning industrial development. Government officials examined 
blueprints for coal-fired and hydroelectric power plants as well 
as plans for expanding the chemical and engineering industries. 
Despite chronic worker absenteeism, the engineering sector per- 
formed remarkably well, tripling output between 1965 and 1973. 
The late 1960s also saw changes in the agricultural sector. The 
authorities announced a farm collectivization drive in 1967 and, 
in an attempt to take advantage of economies of scale, amalgamated 
smaller collectives into larger state farms in 1967 and 1968. By 1970, 
Albania's power grid linked all the country's rural areas. 



113 



Albania: A Country Study 



In the early 1970s, Albania's economy entered a tailspin when 
China reduced aid (see Shifting Alliances, ch. 4). During the peri- 
od of close ties, the Chinese had given Albania about US$900 mil- 
lion in aid and had provided extensive credits for industrial 
development. In the mid-1970s, China accounted for about half 
of Albania's yearly US$200 million in trade turnover. The eco- 
nomic downturn after the aid reduction clearly showed that Alba- 
nia's Stalinist developmental strategy failed to provide growth when 
levels of foreign aid were reduced. In the Fifth Five- Year Plan 
(1971-75), the government called for an increase of about 60 per- 
cent in the value of overall industrial production; producer- goods 
production was to increase by about 80 percent and consumer- goods 
output by about 40 percent. General results from the first two years 
of the plan were relatively satisfactory. But after China reduced 
aid to Albania substantially in 1972, many key sectors fell disas- 
trously short of plan targets. Tirane responded by launching an 
export drive to the capitalist West a year later. In 1974 the govern- 
ment criticized consumer-goods producers for failing to meet as- 
sortment and quality objectives. During the five-year period, overall 
industrial production rose just over 50 percent; producer- goods out- 
put, 57 percent; and consumer-goods output, 45 percent. Despite 
the obvious link with the curtailment of Chinese aid, the Albanian 
government offered no official explanation for the economic down- 
turn. Widespread purges were reported in 1974, 1975, and 1976. 

Isolation and Autarky 

Besides triggering short-term disruptions in the Fifth Five-Year 
Plan, China's reduction of aid to Albania had a dramatic impact 
on the Balkan nation's broader economic policy after 1972. In offi- 
cial parlance, Albania's rulers implemented a strategy of "socialist 
construction based on the principle of self-reliance," that is, a policy 
of strict autarky. In 1976 the People's Assembly constitutionally 
barred the government from accepting any loan or credit from a 
capitalist source and from granting concessions to or setting up joint 
ventures with companies from the capitalist world. The Albani- 
ans publicly criticized Beijing beginning in the fall of 1976, and 
China ended economic aid to Albania altogether in July 1978. The 
break eliminated the source of half of Albania's imports. The coun- 
try had no choice but to stimulate exports to make up the shortfall 
in the hard currency needed to purchase essential supplies. Just 
before the announced break, government planners prescribed a 
rapid increase in the production and export of Albania's four main 
sources of hard-currency income: oil, chromite, copper, and elec- 
tric power. Between 1976 and 1980, exports jumped 33 percent 



114 



The Economy 



over the preceding five-year period. In an act indicative of its 
xenophobia and economic priorities, the regime invested an esti- 
mated 2 percent of net material product in the construction and 
installation of thousands of prefabricated cement bunkers through- 
out the country from 1977 to 1981. 

Tirane took energetic, if extreme, steps to end Albanian depen- 
dence on food imports, even going to the point of requiring each 
of the country's districts to become self-sufficient in food produc- 
tion. In order to keep people on the farms, the authorities also made 
rural wages relatively more attractive and tightened travel restric- 
tions on the rural population. The government reduced the size 
of the personal plots of collective-farm members. Police also in- 
creased harassment of peasants who attempted to sell produce in 
the cities. In late 1981 , the government collectivized private livestock 
in the lowlands as well as all goats and sheep in the highlands. Dis- 
aster ensued when peasants undertook a wholesale slaughter of their 
herds; shortages of meat and dairy products soon plagued the cities. 
Overpopulation in farm communities further complicated efforts 
to achieve self-sufficiency. 

Autarky proved an unsuccessful policy. The productivity growth 
rate fell slowly but steadily during the Seventh Five-Year Plan 
(1981-85), and the annual increase in net material product for the 
period 1981-88 averaged only 1.7 percent, a figure that did not 
even keep pace with the country's annual population increase of 
more than 2 percent. Albania's economy suffered two of its worst 
years in 1984 and 1985. In 1984, 1985, 1987, and 1988 the net 
material product decreased, and from 1986 to 1990 it declined 1.4 
percent (see table 5, Appendix). Five years of drought between 1983 
and 1988 dealt sharp setbacks to agricultural and hydroelectric pow- 
er output. Power shortages and other acute problems afflicted two 
of Albania's main generators of hard-currency income, oil and chro- 
me. As output fell, investment contracted and caused further drops 
in productivity. Insolvent enterprises turned to the state for bailouts. 
The shortage of goods circulating in the economy and the govern- 
ment's maintenance of fixed wage levels created repressed infla- 
tion and forced saving. 

Despite clear portents of an economic catastrophe, the regime 
took no radical initiatives to pull Albania out of its economic nose- 
dive until it was too late to avoid a major collapse. Ramiz Alia, 
who became chairman of the Presidium of the People's Assembly 
in November 1982, gradually assumed more decision-making power 
from Hoxha, who went into semiretirement in 1983 and died in 
April 1985. In 1986 the Albanian Party of Labor still fully suppor- 
ted a centrally planned economy. The party's official daily, Zeri i 



115 



Albania: A Country Study 

Popullit, included the following proclamation in January 1986: ''The 
execution of plan tasks ... by every individual, sector, enterprise, 
agricultural cooperative, district, and ministry is a great patriotic 
duty, a party and state duty." A year later, Alia set to work to 
quash the right of the peasant collective-farm members who still 
had personal plots to sell their produce, denouncing the practice 
as a waste of time and a misguided stimulation of a private mar- 
ket. The ambitious Eighth Five- Year Plan (1986-90) called for an 
increase of about 35 percent in national income, a 30-percent in- 
crease in industrial output, a 35-percent improvement in agricul- 
tural output, and a 44-percent increase in exports. Targeted for 
investment were a hydroelectric power plant at Banje in the south, 
a rail line connecting Durres with the main chromite-mining area 
in central Albania, new superphosphate and ferrochrome plants, 
and the completion of nickel-cobalt and lubrication-oil plants. 

By late 1989, the dismantling of the communist governments 
of Eastern Europe and the reintroduction of capitalism to the region 
were under way, and signs of change began to appear in isolated 
Albania. It was recognized that the attempt to introduce a com- 
pletely socialized agricultural sector had failed and that livestock 
collectivization had been a huge blunder. Nevertheless, in Septem- 
ber 1989 Alia told the Eighth Plenum of the Central Committee 
of the APL that the leadership would "never permit the weaken- 
ing of common socialist property." The party will never, he said, 
"permit that the way be opened to the return to private property 
and capitalist exploitation." At the end of his address, however, 
Alia said that guaranteed employment, a cornerstone of the com- 
munist system, should be allowed to go by the wayside. Thus, he 
signaled that the leadership had indeed realized that radical changes 
to the country's Stalinist economic system were necessary. 

In 1990 Alia attempted to strengthen the communists' weaken- 
ing hold on power by initiating an economic reform from the top 
down. For the first time, the leadership proposed broadening pri- 
vate economic activity outside of agriculture and a role for market 
forces in determining resource allocations for state-owned indus- 
trial enterprises. The government relaxed central planning in 
agriculture, increased the maximum allowable size of personal plots 
to about 0.2 hectares, and ordered collective farms to return 
livestock to peasants. The reforms provided for an expansion of 
enterprise self-financing and allowed local governments to plan part 
of the industrial activity that took place in their districts. 

In January 1990, at the Ninth Plenum of the Central Commit- 
tee, party leaders disclosed a reform program that constituted an 
even more radical departure from their purely Stalinist rhetoric 



116 



The Economy 



of only a few months earlier. Enterprises were divided into small 
units and made financially independent, with long-term bank credits 
replacing state subsidies. The package included decentralization 
of economic decision making. Workers won the right to choose and 
dismiss enterprise directors. Wages were to be based on plan ful- 
fillment and enterprise profits. Supply and demand were to deter- 
mine the prices of luxury goods. Citizens were permitted to 
undertake private construction for their own use. Agricultural 
cooperatives were allowed to sell food in towns and set their own 
prices. At the Tenth Plenum of the Central Committee in April 
1990, Alia said that as a consequence of the reforms a significant 
turnover had occurred among the directors of Albania's enterprises. 
Resistance to the reforms came from administrative employees un- 
willing or unable to adapt to new job requirements. Some firms 
responded to the economic reforms by reducing their output tar- 
gets in hope of increasing their bonuses; other firms, hoping to avoid 
penalties for sustaining unplanned losses, actually planned for losses 
in advance. 

The government failed to implement the reforms quickly enough 
to stem the tide of popular unrest and prevent economic disaster. 
In the summer of 1990, the existence of unemployment became 
apparent in Albania. A new drought reduced supplies of electri- 
city from Albania's hydroelectric dams and forced plant shutdowns. 
Thousands of Albanians demanding visas stormed Tirane's few 
Western embassies. The first postwar opposition political move- 
ment emerged in December 1990; riots in Tirane and Shkoder in 
April 1991 galvanized antigovernment forces; and thousands of Al- 
banians fled to Greece and Italy, but most were later forcibly 
returned. 

By mid- 1991, only a quarter of Albania's production capacity 
was functioning. Industrial output in the third quarter was 60 per- 
cent less than in the third quarter of 1990. The foreign debt reached 
about US$354 million in mid-1991, up from US$254 million at 
the end of 1990 and US$96 million at the close of 1989. Despite 
the paralysis in production, the government fed inflation by issu- 
ing unbacked money to pay idle workers 80 percent of their nor- 
mal wages. The opportunity to pilfer became one of the strongest 
factors motivating people to go to work, and the absence of clearly 
defined property rights and the breakdown of the rule of law fueled 
rampant theft of both private and state-owned property. The pro- 
longed shutdown of production lines threatened serious damage 
to equipment and other capital goods, which suffered at least 
as much from plunder and cannibalization as from normal 
depreciation. 



117 



Albania: A Country Study 

In the chaos, consideration of the transition costs inherent in the 
changeover from a socialist to a capitalist system became irrele- 
vant. The coalition government that took office in June 1991 
responded to the situation by announcing that it intended to carry 
out radical economic reforms including privatization of agricul- 
tural land, creation of a legal framework necessary for the func- 
tioning of a market economy, commercialization and privatization 
of economic enterprises, tight monetary and fiscal policies, price 
and foreign-trade liberalization, limited convertibility of Albania's 
currency, and the creation of a social safety net. However, the coali- 
tion government fell several months later. In April 1992, a victori- 
ous Albanian Democratic Party (ADP) took over the government 
and assumed the burden of implementing badly needed economic 
reforms. 

Economic System 

Change from a centrally planned economy to a free-market sys- 
tem necessarily entails hardship, job redistribution, income fluc- 
tuations, and a naturally unpopular abandonment of a false sense 
of security. Albania's Stalinist economic system, however, disin- 
tegrated so completely in the early 1990s that the people had little 
choice but to take cover as the government enacted sweeping free- 
market reforms. Article 1 of an August 1991 law on economic ac- 
tivity ripped the heart out of the Stalinist economic system, provid- 
ing for the protection of private property and foreign investments 
and legalizing private employment of workers, privatization of state 
property, and the extension and acceptance of credit. Government 
officials set to work drafting a new civil code, a revised commer- 
cial code, new enterprise laws, and new banking, tax, labor, anti- 
trust, and social security legislation. Widespread anarchy, an almost 
complete production shutdown, a paucity of capital, and a lack of 
managers trained to deal with the vagaries of a market economy 
slowed the reform process. 

Governmental Bodies and Control 

In its last months in power, Albania's communist regime en- 
gaged nine ministries in the battle to free up the country's para- 
lyzed economy. The Council of Ministers and the Ministry of 
Finance formed the hub of economic decision making, and work- 
ers and managers at troubled enterprises regularly turned directly 
to them for direction. The Ministry of Finance took most respon- 
sibility for implementing the government's economic reform pro- 
grams. It drew up accounting and tax regulations as well as rules 
on the documentation of business activity and contributions to 



118 



A man harvesting with a scythe in a field in the central coastal region 
Albanians loading grass into a wagon near the town 
of Lushnje in the central part of the country 
Courtesy Charles Sudetic 



119 



Albania: A Country Study 



social security funds. Inspectors from the Ministry of Finance, 
known as the " treasury police" or "financial police." enforced 
the country's economic laws, oversaw customs posts, and worked, 
albeit with little success, to curb black-market speculators and take 
action against violators of price ceilings. The other ministries con- 
cerned with the economy, such as agriculture, construction, in- 
dustry, trade, and transportation, implemented plans affecting their 
respective sectors. 

Ownership and Private Property 

Albania's government sought to save itself during the collapse 
of the country's economy by abandoning its Stalinist ideology, reviv- 
ing family farms, and allowing for the creation of small trade and 
service businesses. It launched reforms in early 1991 that legal- 
ized private ownership and gave statutory protection to joint ven- 
tures involving .Albanian and foreign companies. In its June 1991 
economic program, the coalition government called for the rapid 
privatization of state-owned property, including the relinquishment 
of agricultural land to private farmers and the transfer of owner- 
ship of industrial enterprises through a free distribution of shares 
in mutual funds or stock in holding companies. Later the govern- 
ment began auctioning off small enterprises, including shops and 
restaurants, as well as distributing apartments and homes to their 
current residents without requiring payment. The government also 
planned to liquidate unsalvageable enterprises. 

The new government supported calls for a crash privatization 
program and the free granting of ownership rights to the "most 
natural recipients" by arguing that the economy sorely lacked in- 
dependent decision makers and that no recover}* could be expect- 
ed until private property had been established. The economy's 
paralysis and widespread popular unrest underscored the urgency 
of going forward with some kind of privatization scheme. The law 
on economic activities provided for the privatization of industrial 
enterprises and firms dealing with handicrafts, construction, trans- 
portation, bank services, foreign and domestic trade, housing, cul- 
ture and the arts, and legal services. The law. however, called for 
special legislation to regulate the privatization of Albania's energy 
and mineral extraction industries, telecommunications, forest and 
water resources, roadways and railroads, ports and airports, and 
air and rail transportation enterprises. The government created 
a National Privatization Agency to auction off enterprises; Alba- 
nians were to receive first option to buy. 

Privatization proceeded in tits and starts, but within several 
months about 30.000 people found themselves employed in the 



120 



The Economy 



nonagricultural private sector. The government privatized about 
25,000 retail stores and service enterprises and about 50 percent 
of all small state enterprises in each sector, mostly through direct 
sales to workers. Also privatized were state firms engaged in han- 
dicrafts, a brick factory, bakeries, a fishery and fishing boats, a 
construction company, and six seagoing cargo vessels. The gov- 
ernment also planned a large-scale privatization of workshops, 
production lines, and factories. The original plan called for the es- 
tablishment of about five mutual funds and transformation of the 
surviving larger state enterprises into joint-stock companies. The 
shares in these companies would be distributed to the mutual funds, 
whose shares would in turn be distributed free to all adult citizens 
resident in Albania. Limited domestic capital, however, made pri- 
vatization of large enterprises difficult. 

Enterprises and Firms 

Prior to the 1990s, the state owned and ran all enterprises. Reams 
of instructions sent from central planners constituted upper manage- 
ment. Enterprise directors did not have power over investment, 
employment, production, or any other decision-making areas but 
were responsible for maintaining initial capital stock. Competition 
among enterprises did not exist. In October 1990, however, as the 
economic system's breakdown became fully apparent, the govern- 
ment enacted a new enterprise law giving workers management, 
but not ownership, of the enterprises that employed them. In Au- 
gust 1991, the law on economic activity enabled persons seeking 
to open businesses to register at the court of the district in which 
they wished to operate. The court would, within a ten-day period, 
decide whether or not to grant an operating license. If denied a 
license, a registrant could appeal to a higher court, which had to 
decide on the matter within another ten days. The law on busi- 
ness activity also required private enterprises to abide by govern- 
ment standards for quality; weights and measures; safety, sanitary, 
and working conditions; and environmental protection. 

With the help of consultants from the European Community 
(EC — see Glossary), the International Monetary Fund (IMF — 
see Glossary), and the World Bank (see Glossary), the Council of 
Ministers also began working on a new law on the activities of state 
enterprises. In draft, the law provided for the state to supervise 
the operation of surviving state-owned enterprises but allowed their 
managers a broad measure of independence. The draft also provid- 
ed for the creation of a steering council for each enterprise, which 
would be nominated by the appropriate ministry or a local govern- 
ment. The council would make major management decisions; work 



121 



Albania: A Country Study 



up the enterprise's business plan; manage relations with the govern- 
ment, other enterprises, and employees; and set wages and bonuses. 
A delegate elected by fellow employees would represent the enter- 
prise's workers on the steering council but would not have a vote. 
The draft bill also defined how net revenues would be divided 
among capital reserves, development funds, social assistance, and 
employee bonuses. 

By freeing prices, eliminating barriers to trade, applying bank- 
ing criteria to credits, and instituting new policies on interest rates, 
Albania's government gradually bolted together a new framework 
for assessing the potential viability of the country's enterprises. 
Western economists proposed a recovery program calling for in- 
fusions of aid, management supervision, and closure of loss- 
generating enterprises. The program included commitments by 
donor nations of US$140 million in spare parts and raw materials 
to jump-start paralyzed industries. Under the program, enterprises 
whose output was valued at less than the cost of inputs would not 
be restarted because halting production and paying full wages to 
idled workers would be less damaging to the overall economy than 
maintaining operations. The viability of restarted firms would be 
evaluated six to nine months after the introduction of free-market 
conditions. These enterprises would face either a rollover of capi- 
tal credits, a rollover of working capital credits accompanied by 
an investment credit, or liquidation by the auctioning of assets. 

Finance and Banking 

Under the communist system, the government made all invest- 
ment decisions, allocating monies to enterprises directly from state 
coffers. Enterprises were permitted only to manage their initial cap- 
ital stock and were not allowed to dispose of or acquire new capi- 
tal. Each enterprise redeposited a predetermined sum into the state 
budget to compensate for the cost of its fixed assets. The financing 
mechanism failed in the early 1990s because production rates plum- 
meted and state enterprises generated far more losses than gains. 
As a consequence, government revenues and reserves rapidly 
shrank. By mid- 1991 Albania's budget deficit was equal to almost 
half of the country's gross domestic product (GDP — see Glossary). 
Unbacked currency was issued to finance a large part of the banking 
system, and inflation soared. Decades of communist-enforced iso- 
lation had left few Albanians with an understanding of the pitfalls 
of complex financial transactions. In 1989 and 1990, according to 
the Council of Ministers, State Bank of Albania currency traders 
speculated recklessly on the world spot-money market. Taking on 
market commitments of up to US$2 billion in a single currency, 



122 



The Economy 



these traders reportedly marked up losses of as much as US$170 
million, a huge figure considering that the country's annual ex- 
ports at the time amounted to about US$100 million. 

The efficient replacement of government plan instructions by 
consumer preferences in determining resource allocation required 
the development of a true capital market in Albania. The August 
1991 law on economic activity allowed private persons, for the first 
time since World War II, to finance businesses with lek (L; for 
value of the lek — see Glossary) investments and foreign currency 
through the State Bank of Albania, other state-owned banks, and 
domestic or foreign private banks. Albania joined the IMF in 1991 
and thereafter worked to secure a standby credit agreement. In 
the absence of an effective domestic banking system, illegal money 
changers and black marketeers met the demand for credit and 
money-changing services on a bustling Tirane street corner known 
locally as "the Bank," where an estimated US$60,000 to 
US$80,000 changed hands each day. 

Albania's government, assisted by specialists from the IMF and 
World Bank, prepared a two-tier banking system to be governed 
by laws on the central bank and the commercial banking system. 
Under the draft banking laws, the National Bank of Albania, a 
reorganized version of the old State Bank of Albania, would issue 
and manage the national currency and oversee credit policies. The 
central bank would also manage foreign-exchange reserves, act as 
a fiscal agent for the government, maintain a securities exchange 
market, and license other banks to operate in Albania. The bank 
would be responsible to the People's Assembly and therefore main- 
tain some distance from the government administration. The coun- 
try's banking system would include the Albanian Commercial Bank, 
which took over commercial foreign-exchange transactions from 
the State Bank of Albania; the Savings Bank; and the Bank for Ag- 
ricultural Development. 

With a branch in every district, 130 rural offices, and 500 staff 
members, the main source of formal agricultural credit in Albania 
was the Bank for Agricultural Development. The government sepa- 
rated the farm bank from the State Bank of Albania in 1991 . New 
banking laws excluded the Bank for Agricultural Development 
pending a parliamentary agreement with parliament. At issue was 
whether the bank would loan money and set interest rates accord- 
ing to bankers' criteria, the primary one being the potential for 
timely repayment at a profit, or give special treatment to small farm- 
ers and act as a government agent channeling funds to state farms 
and state-owned enterprises. The farm bank's portfolio included 
close to L4.0 billion (US$592 million) in bad loans to state farms, 



123 



Albania: A Country Study 

dissolved collectives, and state-owned enterprises. A debt-resolution 
agency was likely to assume responsibility for collection of these 
bad loans, 90 percent of whose face value had been underwritten 
by the state. The bank's only real assets were L320 million in loans 
to individuals and L254 million in deposits. 

Currency and Monetary Policy 

For decades Albania's government artificially maintained the ex- 
change rate of the country's currency, the lek, at between L5 and 
L7 to US$1 without regard to production, prices, the external mar- 
ket, or other factors. Among the casualties of the economic col- 
lapse of the early 1990s was the government's control over public 
finances and monetary aggregates; another victim was the lek's 
facade of stability. An enormous budget deficit, brought on in part 
by huge government subsidies to money-losing enterprises during 
a period of almost complete breakdown in production, led to triple- 
digit inflation. The regime took steps to impose monetary discipline 
by suspending payment of wage increases. To slow inflation, the 
government promised to cut its budget and eliminate price sup- 
ports and subsidies to loss-generating state enterprises. 

The government's first tentative step toward currency conver- 
tibility came when the August 1991 law on economic activity legal- 
ized the exchange of foreign currency for leks at rates set by the 
State Bank of Albania or by the private foreign currency market. 
A month later, the government devalued the lek by 150 percent 
and pegged it to the European Currency Unit (see Glossary). The 
inflationary spiral quickly drove the lek's value downward. For- 
eign businesses had no choice but to reinvest lek profits, despite 
the government's announced intention of introducing a fully con- 
vertible lek, because the acute shortage of foreign-currency reserves 
made convertibility impossible. 

Government Revenues and Expenditures 

Tax collection had been a serious problem in the Albanian- 
populated lands at least since the Ottoman Empire extended its 
rule over the region and probably since Roman times. The govern- 
ment eliminated personal income taxes in 1967 and all personal 
taxes in 1970. For the next twenty years, central and local govern- 
ments collected revenues primarily through turnover taxes and 
revenue deductions from state and collective enterprises. In 1984 
these collections accounted for a record 96 percent of government 
revenue. Chaos overtook Albania's fiscal and taxation systems in 
1990, revenues dried up, and the government had to issue unbacked 
currency to continue operations. In 1991 the government announced 



124 



The Economy 



that the country's fiscal system had to be strengthened because "no 
market economy exists without taxes." The People's Assembly set 
to work on a battery of revenue measures, including a tax on profits, 
a sales tax, a business registration tax, a motor vehicle tax, and 
excise taxes on cigarettes, alcoholic beverages, and oil products. 
Predictably, talk of taxes fueled resentment among neophyte en- 
trepreneurs. 

The law on taxation of profits, which the government hoped to 
implement in early 1992, appeared to offer significant incentives 
to private enterprise and foreign investment. It required payment 
of a 30 percent tax on yearly profits but exempted private persons 
from payment for three years from the time they began business 
activities. Joint ventures and foreign-owned firms were required 
to pay a 30 percent profit tax. Upon completing ten years of busi- 
ness activity in Albania, a joint venture or foreign firm would receive 
tax reductions. Foreign enterprises and persons who reinvested 
profits in Albania received a 40 percent tax reduction on the amount 
reinvested. The proposed measure, however, would require all joint 
ventures and foreign-owned enterprises engaged in mining and 
energy production to pay a 50 percent profits tax. Foreign per- 
sons were required to pay a 10 percent tax on all repatriated profits. 

With only limited capacity to generate tax revenues, the govern- 
ment emphasized reducing the overall budget deficit and public 
debt. Proceeds from the legitimate sale of international aid items 
were used to maintain essential government functions and the so- 
cial safety net. Local government reform depended on the develop- 
ment of a new system of financing based on users' fees, local taxes, 
and central-government grants. Albania's local governments were 
in dire need of technical assistance to establish a local finance 
system and train government staff in planning and financial 
management. 

Savings 

Albania's communists claimed they had engineered the world's 
thriftiest society. One in three Albanians maintained a savings ac- 
count. The volume of deposits in Albania's savings bank rose by 
200 times between 1950 and the late 1980s, albeit from a minus- 
cule base. Between 1980 and 1983, the savings rate grew 28 per- 
cent. The continual increases in personal savings indicated that 
the economy was not producing adequate quantities of consumer 
goods. The government-run banks offered a 2 percent interest rate 
on short-term deposits and 3 percent on long-term deposits. After 
the economic crash of the early 1990s, saving, at least in cash, was 
not an option for most of the population. The wage of an average 



125 



Albania: A Country Study 

Albanian worker dropped to about US$10 per month; a day's pay 
bought a half kilogram of cheese. 

Work Force and Standard of Living 

Until the 1990s, Albania's working people played practically no 
meaningful decision-making role in the country's economic life. 
Most workers simply followed orders and scrambled to find neces- 
sities in the country's poorly stocked stores. Personal initiative too 
often either went unrewarded or was considered ideologically un- 
sound and therefore hazardous to personal safety. The regime de- 
nied the existence of unemployment in Albania but kept thousands 
of redundant workers and managers on factory and government 
payrolls and dispatched young people entering the work force to 
labor manually on collective farms or elsewhere in the economy. 

The collapsing economic system left most Albanians effectively 
jobless. Despair, fear of political repression, and television-fed ex- 
pectations of an easy life in the West triggered waves of emigra- 
tion to Europe's established free-market democracies, in particular 
Greece and Italy. The craving to leave Albania in search of work 
was so strong that in August 1991, long after the arrival of inter- 
national food aid, tens of thousands of people converged on Durres 
after rumors spread through the nearby countryside that a ship 
would take passengers from that port to Italy. 

Prices and Wages 

For many years, all prices and wages were fixed by the govern- 
ment, using annual economic plans. The leadership followed the 
Stalinist model of conveying general productivity gains to house- 
holds by reducing retail prices rather than by raising wages, which 
would have allowed consumers a modicum of leverage in the mar- 
ketplace and, if goods were unavailable or failed to attract pur- 
chasers, would have produced inflationary pressure, forced savings, 
and a black market. Between 1950 and 1969, the Albanian authori- 
ties lowered prices thirteen times. The 1970s witnessed no price 
cuts, but the government reduced some prices again in 1982 and 
1983. Enterprises that sustained losses because of the governments' 
system of setting wages and prices were compensated with subsi- 
dies from the state budget. 

The economic anarchy that followed the collapse of the centrally 
planned system ended the years of artificial price stability. The Au- 
gust 1991 law on economic activity removed price controls on the 
prices of all goods except bread, meat, dairy products, other es- 
sential food items, other goods in short supply, and products pro- 
duced by monopoly enterprises. Also, the law required an annual 



126 



The Economy 



review of price ceilings. Price controls became less effective as pri- 
vate food markets developed. The price freeze even failed to halt 
price increases for rationed food items because they disappeared 
from the shelves of state stores, where price restrictions were en- 
forced, and found their way onto the black market, where specu- 
lators kept prices high. The Council of Ministers endorsed a draft 
law on prices, drawn up by the Ministry of Finance, which would 
free retail, wholesale, and producer prices for all but a few agricul- 
tural commodities and monopoly controlled products. The authori- 
ties introduced trade liberalization to stimulate supply increases 
and competition, which they hoped would maintain downward pres- 
sure on prices. The government also planned gradual elimination 
of subsidies for money-losing firms in an attempt to stop hyper- 
inflation. 

Under the communist system, Albania's government had main- 
tained one of the world's most egalitarian wage structures. The 
central authorities fixed the number of workers at an enterprise, 
assigned them to particular jobs, and set the wage fund, which for 
the nation as a whole translated in 1983 to a monthly pay of about 
L400 for a worker and about L900 for a manager. By 1988 aver- 
age worker earnings grew to between L600 and L700 (US$89- 
US$104); and pay for top officials reached LI, 500 (US$223). In 
the early 1990s, the regime modified the wage system, creating in- 
centives for overfulfillment of plan targets, and allowing for a 10 
percent pay cut for management if enterprises failed to attain plan 
targets. 

Economic liberalization spawned a private sector without wage 
controls. Market-driven price hikes forced the government to raise 
wages for state workers twice in mid- 1991. During the economic 
chaos, negotiators for Albania's newly independent trade unions 
demanded that the government automatically increase wages to 
keep pace with price hikes. At state factories and farms idled by 
disruptions in deliveries of raw materials, workers' salaries were 
reduced only 20 percent, a move strongly criticized by the coun- 
try's main opposition party as inherently inflationary. The oppo- 
sition called for fixed wages for workers at state enterprises and 
an absolute limit on subsidies to money-losing enterprises, as two 
means of slowing the bidding-up of wages and inflation. In the 
chaos, the average monthly income for Albanian workers plum- 
meted to the equivalent of about US$10. 

Enver Hoxha and his followers enforced frugality on Albanians 
for decades. The regime made few significant attempts to turn the 
product mix of the country's industrial sector away from heavy 
industrial goods and toward consumer goods, especially durable 



127 



Albania: A Country Study 

consumer goods. Instead of absorbing personal savings by produc- 
ing and selling more consumer items, the government lowered the 
incomes of the few highly paid and skilled workers. People who 
complained often lost their jobs and were sent to state farms. The 
policy eased inflationary pressures but had dire consequences for 
worker motivation and willingness to accept responsibility. The Al- 
banian economy's reliance on domestic monopolies made it espe- 
cially susceptible to shortages. The country's only glass factory, 
for example, shut down in mid- 1990. Lacking hard currency to 
purchase imported glass, Albanians had to live without bottles and 
replacement windows. When Italy delivered plate glass as part of 
relief supplies, it was discovered that the Albanians had no glaz- 
ing putty. 

Domestic consumption at first slowed with the collapse of the 
Stalinist economic system. In 1991 state shops were practically empty 
of goods, if they were open at all. Milk, butter, eggs, and medicines 
were in short supply. People had to squeeze through metal-barred 
windows at bakeries just to buy loaves of bread. Private stores and 
black marketeers had a relatively wide variety of goods, including 
pasta, peeled tomatoes, soap, fruit juices, and toilet paper, but with 
one kilogram of spaghetti costing a tenth of the average monthly 
salary, these goods were far beyond the purchasing power of the 
vast majority of the population. The government introduced general 
rationing, but by mid- 1991 widespread fear that supplies of basic 
food items would run out caused crowds to begin plundering ware- 
houses and retail outlets. Hopes for increased supplies and broad- 
er choices in the marketplace grew with the emergence of the private 
sector, which almost immediately began bringing in products that 
previously were unavailable, and often banned. 

Domestic Consumption 

Even the communist government's sparse official statistics could 
not hide the fact that the Albanians suffered a low living standard. 
From the mid-1970s, the economy struggled to produce enough 
food and consumer goods to supply the quickly growing popula- 
tion. In the early 1990s, serious difficulty in simply feeding the 
country forced the government to scrap its Stalinist economic poli- 
cies and to appeal for foreign humanitarian relief to avert 
widespread hunger. Saving became an impossibility for almost the 
entire population. 

Standard of Living 

In the late 1980s, the average pay for an Albanian worker was 
about US$89 to US$104 monthly at the official exchange rate of 



128 



The Economy 



US$1 to L6.75. The government supplemented low incomes by 
annually allocating about 25 percent of the annual budget, about 
L4,000 (US$595) for each family, to the population's cultural and 
social needs, including everything from price subsidies for neces- 
sities like children's clothing to library construction. The state 
provided free education and health care and absorbed 65 percent 
of tuition for day care and kindergarten and 18 to 35 percent of 
the cost of meals in workers' cafeterias. 

Under the communist regime, the cost of living for the average 
Albanian was generally low. Food was generally inexpensive but 
in chronically short supply. The Albanians' staple diet consisted 
of bread, sugar, pasta, and rice, which were sold at or near cost. 
Production shortfalls limited supplies of meat, dairy products, and 
other protein-rich foods. Albanians enjoyed increasing supplies of 
clothing in the late 1980s, but price, quality, and style left much 
to be desired. The state subsidized the prices of children's cloth- 
ing and shoes, but a man's shirt could cost about L200 (US$30), 
a suit L675 (US$100), and a woman's sweater L150 (US$22). A 
farmer had to work about two weeks to buy a pair of the most in- 
expensive shoes. Durable goods carried exorbitant price tags. A 
bicycle sold for about L900 (US$134); a motorbike, L2,700 
(US$402); a radio, LI, 000 (US$149); a television, L4,000 
(US$595). The ever- vigilant state required that purchasers of tel- 
evisions and refrigerators obtain permits. Housing rents were low, 
usually amounting to between 1 percent and 3 percent of an aver- 
age family's income. In 1980, for example, the monthly rent for 
an apartment in Lezhe came to L40 (US$7.50). Public transpor- 
tation also cost little. 

Officials estimated that the standard of living for town dwel- 
lers with average monthly incomes dropped by about half in 1991 . 
Government statistics showed that a typical family with an aver- 
age monthly income of LI ,300 in December 1990 would need more 
than L4,500 to keep up with inflation over the same period. In 
1991 a kilogram of spinach sold for L60 at Tirane's produce mar- 
ket; oranges cost L200 per half kilogram; and a bottle of orange 
drink, L600. Per capita annual meat consumption in cities totaled 
about 11.7 kilograms in 1990, down from about 14.6 kilograms 
in 1975; rural meat consumption in 1990 was about 9.0 kilograms 
per capita, actually an improvement from 7.3 kilograms per cap- 
ita in 1975. Furniture prices give some indication of how per- 
sonal incomes failed to maintain pace with prices in 1991. In one 
Tirane store, a table cost L60,000; a bed, LI 30,000; a door, 
L150,000. 



129 



Albania: A Country Study 

Population and Work Force 

Growing at least 2 percent annually during the 1980s, Albania's 
population reached 3.2 million by 1990. Males accounted for about 
51.5 percent of the Albanian populace. About 60 percent of the 
country's men and 55 percent of its women were of working age. 
Natural growth added about 45,000 persons to the working-age 
population annually in the 1980s, about a 3.5 percent average yearly 
increase. The work force officially numbered about 1 million peo- 
ple in 1980 and about 1.5 million when the economy collapsed in 
1990. Albania's principal industries were labor-intensive, but there 
were ample labor reserves in the agricultural population. Workers 
officially put in a six-day, forty-eight-hour week with at least two 
weeks of annual vacation. People who fled Albania during the com- 
munist era, however, reported that ten-hour workdays were the 
minimum at many farms and factories (see Social Structure under 
Communist Rule; Social Insurance, ch. 2). 

The government also assigned almost everyone to special "work 
actions," which entailed gathering harvests and building irriga- 
tion systems and railroad embankments; "volunteer" work details 
scavenged scrap metal and beautified public parks on "Enver Days" 
to honor the "father of the nation." Labor productivity declined 
about 1.7 percent per year from 1980 to 1988, an indication that 
the economy was failing to create enough jobs to absorb the in- 
creasing numbers of working-age people. Apart from diplomatic 
staff and emigres, no Albanian nationals were working abroad be- 
fore the communist system's decline. 

Albania's employment profile was clearly that of a developing 
country. In 1987, Albania's agriculture sector employed 52 per- 
cent of the country's workers; industry, 22.9 percent; construc- 
tion, 7.1 percent; trade, 4.6 percent; education and culture, 4.4 
percent: and transportation and communications, 2.9 percent (see 
table 6, Appendix). The failure of the communist economy, how- 
ever, rocked the structure of Albania's work force. Except for 
workers in the government bureaucracy, schools and hospitals, the 
military and police, basic services, and private firms, the turmoil 
left only a handful of Albanians with productive jobs. The doors 
slammed shut, for example, at almost all the enterprises in the 
mountainous Kukes District, including a profitable chromite mine, 
a copper-smelting plant that closed for lack of coal, and a textile 
factory that ran out of wool and thread. Albania's government 
reported unemployment at about 30 percent, but unofficial 1991 
estimates indicated that about 50 percent of the work force was 



130 




131 



Albania: A Country Study 

jobless. Idled factory workers tilled private plots, sought jobs in 
new private retail outlets and handicraft workshops, or attempted 
to leave the country to search for work abroad. Officials appealed 
to the international community to provide material inputs neces- 
sary to jump-start Albanian factories and hoped that a US$10 aver- 
age monthly wage, one of the world's lowest for a literate labor 
force, would entice foreign investors. 

Women in the Work Force 

The female proportion of the country's wage-earning work force 
increased markedly after World War II, although women continued 
to bear most of the responsibility for maintaining Albanian's house- 
holds. Women had played a subservient role in traditional Alba- 
nian society and were for hundreds of years considered little more 
than beasts of burden. During Albania's Cultural and Ideological 
Revolution, which began in 1966, the regime encouraged women 
to take jobs outside the home in an effort to overcome their con- 
servatism and compensate for labor shortages. An enormous in- 
crease in the number of preschools facilitated the entry of women 
into paying jobs. By late in the decade, the regime was struggling 
to overcome male resistance to the appointment of women to 
government and party posts once held exclusively by men. Wom- 
en accounted for about 41 percent of the overall rural labor force 
in 1961 and 51.3 percent in 1983. Despite Albania's high annual 
birth rate in the late 1980s, women made up about 47 percent of 
the country's overall work force, including 53 percent of the labor 
force in agriculture; 43.5 percent in industry; 55 percent in trade; 
80 percent in health care; and 54 percent in education and cul- 
ture. In mountain areas, women made up a significantly higher 
proportion of farm labor. In 1981 women accounted for 70.7 per- 
cent of the collective-farm work force in Puke District and con- 
stituted a similarly disproportionate segment in Kukes, Tropoje, 
Mat, and Libra,zhd. 

Trade Unions 

Albanian workers and enterprise managers had little significant 
influence until the old order began breaking down in 1990. Work- 
ers for decades had no recourse but to rely on government-con- 
trolled trade unions to protect their interests, but the ruling party 
used these unions only as mouthpieces to implore workers to pro- 
duce more and accept more sacrifices. Independent trade unions 
arose from the ashes of the official labor organizations in each 
of the economy's major sectors. In 1991 union representatives 
pressed government officials for concessions on issues of wages and 



132 



The Economy 



working conditions, a general labor contract, and wage indexing 
to mitigate the effects of inflation. They also demanded social secu- 
rity guarantees, reestablishment of electrical service in many towns, 
and deliveries of raw materials to idle factories. Management often 
backed the workers' demands to the government. There were strikes 
as well as mass protests in central Tirane and elsewhere. In 
mid- 1991, the Council of Ministers drafted a law on labor rela- 
tions that eliminated the job security Albanian workers had en- 
joyed under the communist system, allowing firms to dismiss 
workers who violated disciplinary standards. 

Agriculture 

The Albanian economy's traditional mainstay, agriculture, 
generated a third of the country's net material product and em- 
ployed more than half the work force in 1990. Domestic farm 
products accounted for 63 percent of household expenditures and 
25 percent of exports in that year. While striving for self-sufficiency 
in the 1970s and 1980s, the Hoxha regime created the world's most 
strictly controlled and isolated farm sector. But as the government 
force-fed investment funds to industry at the farm sector's expense, 
food output fell short of the needs of the rapidly increasing popu- 
lation. The government triggered acute disruptions in food sup- 
plies by reducing the size of personal plots, collectivizing livestock, 
and forbidding peasants to market their produce privately. By the 
early 1990s, the country's farms were no longer supplying adequate 
amounts of food to urban areas; they were also failing to meet the 
needs of Albanian factories for raw materials. The regime responded 
by stimulating agricultural production through a program of land 
privatization and free-market measures, cognizant that the success 
of its broader economic reform program depended heavily on the 
agricultural sector's ability to feed the population and provide the 
input-starved production lines with raw materials. 

The Land 

In 1991 cultivable land in Albania amounted to about 714,000 
hectares, about 25 percent of the country's total area. Arable land 
and permanent croplands totaled about 590,000 hectares and 
124,000 hectares, respectively; permanent pasturelands account- 
ed for another 409,528 hectares. More than 100,000 hectares of 
the cultivable land had a slope greater than 30 percent and was 
allocated almost entirely to permanent tree crops such as olives. 
Forests and woodlands covered more than 1 million hectares, or 
38 percent of the total land area. The soils of the coastal plain and 



133 



Albania: A Country Study 



eastern plateau were fertile, but acidic soils were predominant in 
the 200,000 hectares of cropland in hilly and mountainous areas. 

Irrigation and desalination projects, terracing of highlands, and 
drainage of marshes, often carried out by forced labor, added con- 
siderably to the country's cultivable land after 1945. Large popu- 
lation increases, however, reduced the amount of cultivable land 
per capita by 35 percent between 1950 and 1987 and by 20 per- 
cent between 1980 and 1988. About 423,000 hectares were irrigated 
in 1991, up from about 39,300 hectares in 1950. The economic 
disruptions of the early 1990s, however, left only about 40 percent 
of the country's irrigation system functional and 20 percent in com- 
plete disrepair. Albania also invested substantially in imported 
Dutch greenhouses during its drive for food self-sufficiency. 

Land Distribution and Agricultural Organization 

Following Enver Hoxha's 1967 proclamation that the regime had 
collectivized all of Albania's private farmland, the country's only 
legal forms of agricultural production were state farms, collective 
farms, and personal plots granted to members of collective farms. 
The first Albanian state farm grew out of a large experimental farm 
set up by Italian colonists in the 1930s. After World War II, the 
government amalgamated small collective farms and transformed 
them into state farms in each district. The 216 state farms, which 
still controlled 24 percent of the arable land in 1991, functioned 
like industrial organizations; thus, state farm workers, like facto- 
ry workers, toiled for set wages. The state farms received the best 
land and equipment and a disproportionate amount of investment 
monies. Collective farms were the result of government campaigns 
to coerce peasants into signing over their private holdings to co- 
operatives and working the land in common, according to the in- 
structions of the central government's economic planners. The 
authorities later took gradual steps to transform collective farms 
into "higher- type" farms more closely resembling state farms in 
their organization. Faced with dire food shortages, the regime in 
1990 attempted to reform the agricultural system by lifting a 
200-square-meter limitation on the size of the personal plots of col- 
lective farm-members. 

In July 1991, the government enacted a law that nullified old 
property claims and regulated redistribution of the expropriated 
farmlands given to collective farms after 1946. The law granted 
landownership rights to members of the former collective farms 
and their households without requiring compensation; it also grant- 
ed land-use rights to up to 0.4 hectares to other qualifying resi- 
dents of villages attached to collective farms. The law provided for 



134 



The Economy 



the inheritance of property but banned land sales and leases, there- 
by blocking voluntary consolidation of tiny landholdings and limiting 
farmers' access to credit by precluding the use of land as collateral. 

The government established the National Land Commission to 
oversee the land reform. The minister of agriculture chaired the 
commission and reported on its activities to the Council of 
Ministers. District and village land commissions demarcated the 
land, issued ownership titles, and compiled a land registry. 

Albania's land redistribution program proceeded rapidly but un- 
evenly. It met especially stiff resistance in the country's mountainous 
northeastern regions where clans anxious to stake out the bound- 
aries of their traditional family lands tried to stop large numbers 
of postwar immigrants from gaining title to them. Land disputes 
threatened to trigger blood feuds. Local officials also impeded the 
reform process. The central government countered by threaten- 
ing to prosecute anyone who seized land illegally. Under the land- 
distribution program, Albania's agricultural sector would gain about 
380,000 small family farms averaging about 1.4 hectares in size 
and often made up of two or three plots. In mountain areas, the 
parcels were significantly smaller. In Puke, for example, the aver- 
age size was just over 0.5 hectares, and in Kukes, almost 0.9 hect- 
ares. Western economists estimated that 35 percent of the new farms 
would not be economically viable and expressed concern that, un- 
less restrictions on land sales were lifted, inheritance would lead 
to land fragmentation and hamper development. Fearing that small- 
holdings would not provide sustenance, the government amended 
the land law to provide for income support of farmers in moun- 
tainous areas. As privatization progressed, some families and owners 
of contiguous fields began to form private cooperatives to take ad- 
vantage of economies of scale. 

Left in limbo by the land reform were the 216 state farms and 
their 155,000 employees, who accounted for about 20 percent of 
the agricultural labor force. State farms contributed about 30 per- 
cent of the value of the country's agricultural output and supplied 
city dwellers with most of their dairy products, fruits, and vegeta- 
bles. The state farms' yields normally outstripped those of the 
cooperative farms by a third or more because the state farms benefit- 
ed from richer soils, more mechanization, and easier access to farm 
services, government finance, and transportation. The breakdown 
of the communist structure dealt the state farms serious setbacks. 
By mid- 1991 lines of authority had snapped, equipment and build- 
ings had been plundered, and the amount of cultivated land had 
decreased by half. Although it planned to dissolve sixty money- 
losing state farms in the mountainous northeast, the government 



135 



Albania: A Country Study 

generally spared the state farms from redistribution because their 
breakup would lead to serious land fragmentation problems and 
reduce urban food supplies. Pasturelands and forests were also ex- 
empted. Western economic analysts concluded that some of the 
state farms could turn a profit and that foreign companies might 
follow the lead of one Italian firm that had entered into a joint ven- 
ture with a state farm. 

Structure and Marketing of Agricultural Output 

Before the 1990s, Albania's main food crops were wheat, corn, 
fruits, and vegetables (see table 7, Appendix). However, plan- 
ners were devoting increasing attention to tobacco, olives, and 
oranges. Between 1989 and 1991, the country's crop structure un- 
derwent a radical transformation. The new private farmers took 
responsibility for transporting and selling their output and began 
basing their production and marketing decisions on free-market 
conditions. Low state procurement prices, a shortage of livestock 
feed, the breakdown of the transportation system, and a lack of 
demand from idled processing plants led to steep declines in the 
hectarage sown with wheat and such industrial crops as tobacco, 
sugar beets, sunflowers, and cotton. Disputes arising out of the 
government's land-privatization program, shortages of funds for 
seeds and agricultural machinery, and the hasty privatization of 
the enterprises that provided farmers with machinery and fertiliz- 
ers also had an effect. In the first third of 1991, milk production 
was down 50 percent compared to the corresponding period in 1990; 
bread- grain production was down 67 percent; and areas sown with 
cotton and tobacco had decreased by 80 percent and 50 percent, 
respectively. 

The farmers' choice of which crops to plant was motivated 
primarily by the need to feed their families and only secondarily 
by the cash market. In mid- 1991, 10 to 15 percent of Albania's 
cultivable land lay fallow mainly because the state enterprises were 
not giving small farmers seed, fertilizers, and other necessary in- 
puts. Transportation breakdowns and other problems continued 
to force farmers away from crops requiring processing, leaving 
wheat, sugar, and vegetable oils in short supply. Production on 
newly privatized plots grew, however, despite input shortages. Corn 
production increased, and meat, egg, and vegetable output seemed 
to be on the rise. Western economists expected agricultural pro- 
duction to begin recovering in 1992 as the private sector began 
solving transportation problems and reorganizing production in 
response to demand. Despite these grounds for optimism, domes- 
tic production in 1992 was projected to meet only about 88 percent 



136 




Tractor plowing a field just outside Tirarie 
Courtesy Charles Sudetic 

of the country's need for meat, 48 percent for wheat, 30 percent 
for sugar, and 5 percent for vegetable oils. The production short- 
falls would force donor countries to commit additional food aid to 
avert serious hunger. 

Livestock and Pasturelands 

A botched campaign to collectivize livestock in the late 1970s 
and early 1980s led to a wholesale slaughter and chronic produc- 
tion shortfalls. When meat and dairy product shortages in the larger 
towns grew critical, Albania's communists retraced their steps. The 
regime gave animal husbandry a high priority in the Eighth Five- 
Year Plan (1986-90). In July 1990, the government decided to 
allow collective-farm members to raise cattle on their private plots 
and instructed the administrators of collective farms to transfer a 
portion of their stock animals to members. The government also 
recommended that collective farms in mountainous areas grant 
members 0.2 hectares of land each, in addition to their private 
plots, in order to increase livestock production. In mid- 1991, short- 
ages of feed severely hampered livestock production and forced 
farmers to allocate much of their land to cultivation of forage and 
feed corn. The animals raised on this diet were deficient in pro- 
tein and generally of poor quality. Despite the ban on food exports, 



137 



Albania: A Country Study 

herdsmen were reportedly smuggling about 1,000 head of calves, 
cows, sheep, and other livestock across the Greek and Yugoslav 
borders each day because they lacked fodder and sought to take 
advantage of high prices on foreign markets. An additional challenge 
to Albanian stockmen was a serious shortage of artificial- 
insemination and other veterinary services. 

Albania's 409,528 hectares of pastureland remained state-owned 
despite the land reform, and in the chaos of 1991 the government 
set to work on a new law to reassert state control of pasturelands 
and give managers new guidelines. The Ministry of Agriculture's 
eighteen pasture enterprises managed grazing lands at the district 
level and charged customers, including private herdsmen and farm- 
ers, a seasonal fee. Price liberalization did not boost grazing fees 
even though the enterprises were operating at a loss in 1991 . Min- 
istry officials estimated that grazing fees could have to increase 
fourfold before the pasture enterprises could break even. Western 
economists projected that pressure on Albania's pasturelands would 
increase as livestock herds grew and as expanding communities 
sought land for residential and recreational purposes. 

Mechanization 

Faithful to Stalin's teachings on agricultural organization, Al- 
bania's communist regime allowed state farms to possess tractors 
but gave collective farms access to machinery only through machine 
tractor stations (see Glossary). These stations remained a corner- 
stone of Albania's collective agricultural sector for decades. In 1991 
the thirty-three machine tractor stations controlled about 63 per- 
cent of Albania's 10,630 tractors and 25 percent of its 1,433 com- 
bine harvesters; state farms controlled the rest. Official inventories 
also listed 1,857 threshers. As the old order collapsed, the tractor 
stations metamorphosed into state-owned " agricultural machinery 
enterprises" that offered their services to peasant customers on a 
contractual basis. These enterprises often ignored state limitations 
on service charges, demanding exorbitant fees as well as compen- 
sation for fuel at prices higher than those charged at the pump. 
Some tractor drivers bought older Chinese tractors and offered their 
services at prices up to 40 percent more than those charged by the 
state enterprises. More than 75 percent of Albania's tractors were 
over fifteen years old in 1991; most tractors were in disrepair be- 
cause plant closures had cut off supplies of spare parts. 

Fertilizers, Pesticides, and Seeds 

During peak years, Albania had used fertilizers less than almost 
any other nation in Eastern Europe. Nevertheless, in the early 1990s 



138 



The Economy 



the agricultural sector experienced a fertilizer shortage; supplies 
of pesticides and hybrid seed also ran low. In 1989 Albanian farmers 
had applied about 158 kilograms of active ingredients per hectare, 
but the country's economic breakdown pushed the total down to 
135 kilograms in 1990 and 38 kilograms in 1991. A lack of hard 
currency caused fertilizer supplies to drop 80 percent and pesti- 
cide reserves to fall 63 percent. Ironically, intensive application of 
lindane and other pesticides as well as disinfectants for treating soil 
at seeding time, in combination with monocropping of wheat and 
corn, had destroyed many pests' natural enemies and increased 
dependency on pesticides. Although Albania's agricultural research 
institutes produced sufficient foundation seed, obsolete sorting and 
cleaning equipment lowered seed quality. Varietal improvement 
was dependent on the crossing of local strains. The breakup of col- 
lective farms, which produced most of the wheat and corn seed, 
forced farmers to seek new seed suppliers. 

Forests 

Albania has soils and a climate favorable to an extensive lum- 
ber industry. Although the postwar government invested heavily 
in afforestation, it developed an inefficient wood products indus- 
try. In the early 1990s, the thickest woodlands were in the central 
and northern mountain ranges. The country's southern half was 
mostly deforested, a consequence of the clear-cutting of oak trees 
to build the merchant ships of old Venice and Dubrovnik, the de- 
struction of woodlands to create pastures, the burning of wood for 
fuel, and the expansion of villages onto hillsides. Albania's nine 
state forestry industry complexes produced an estimated 2.3 mil- 
lion cubic meters of roundwood annually between 1976 and 1988; 
its twenty-eight sawmills cut about 200,000 cubic meters of wood 
annually between 1977 and 1988. Outdated sawmills, however, 
wasted raw materials and were situated too far from sources of raw 
materials. The pulp, paper, and fiberboard industries enjoyed lit- 
tle competitive advantage and did considerable environmental 
damage. The country's high dependency on wood for heating — 
amounting to 100 percent of household energy needs in moun- 
tainous areas and over 90 percent in the cities in 1991 — contributed 
to the overexploitation of forests. Unchecked cutting by people so 
desperate for fuel that they hacked tree stumps to below ground 
level caused serious damage to woodlands. 

Fisheries 

Albania's fishing industry, which was underdeveloped and poorly 
managed, consisted of four state-owned fishing enterprises, sixteen 



139 



Albania: A Country Study 

aquaculture enterprises, and two shellfish enterprises. The govern- 
ment foresaw little trouble in privatizing all of the country's fish- 
ing vessels but anticipated difficulty in selling off the three fish 
canneries and the only shipyard servicing the fishing and coastal 
transportation fleet. World Bank and European Community 
economists reported that Albania's fishing industry had good poten- 
tial to generate export earnings because prices in the nearby Greek 
and Italian markets were many times higher than those in the Al- 
banian market. Albania's coastal waters were overfished, and for- 
eign economists advised the Albanian government to protect its 
piscine resources from illegal exploitation by vessels from other Eu- 
ropean countries. 

Industry 

Albania's rigid Stalinists considered heavy industry the force driv- 
ing all developed economies. For years, the government fed the 
lion's share of investment money and technology imports to in- 
dustrial behemoths, which had domestic monopolies and too often 
lacked distinct objectives. Especially from the 1960s onward, the 
government spent most investment funds on the production of 
minerals for export and the manufacture of import-substitution 
products. The effort succeeded in expanding and diversifying Al- 
bania's industrial sector, but without the discipline imposed by a 
free market; the resulting creation was inefficient and structurally 
distorted (see table 8; table 9, Appendix). In the early 1990s, in- 
dustry accounted for about 40 percent of Albania's GDP and em- 
ployed about 25 percent of the nation's work force. The industrial 
sector's most important branches were food products, energy and 
petroleum production, mining, light industry, and engineering. 
All of Albania's industrial branches suffered from obsolete equip- 
ment, inadequate infrastructure, and low levels of worker skill and 
motivation. Shortages of energy, spare parts, and raw materials 
stopped industrial production almost entirely in the early 1990s. 

Energy and Natural Resources 

Since classical times, people have exploited the fossil-fuel and 
mineral deposits present in the lands that now constitute Albania. 
Petroleum, natural gas, coal, and asphalt lie in the sedimentary 
rock formations of the country's southwestern regions. The pre- 
dominantly igneous formations of the northern mountains yield 
chromite, ferronickel, copper, and cobalt. Albania also has deposits 
of phosphorite, bauxite, gold, silver, kaolin, clay, asbestos, magne- 
site, dolomite, and gypsum. Salt is abundant. About 70 percent 
of Albania's territory is about 300 meters above sea level, twice 



140 




A power plant for a textile mill complex on the 

outskirts of Tiran'e 
Courtesy Charles Sudetic 
Elbasan Steel Combine 
Courtesy Fred Conrad 



141 



Albania: A Country Study 

the average elevation of Europe. Jagged limestone peaks rise to 
over 2,700 meters. These great heights, combined with normally 
abundant highland rainfall, facilitate the production of hydroelec- 
tric power along rivers. 

With its significant petroleum and natural-gas reserves, coal 
deposits, and hydroelectric-power capacity, Albania has the poten- 
tial to produce enough energy for domestic consumption and ex- 
port fuels and electric power. Mismanagement led to production 
shortfalls in the early 1990s, however, and forced the government 
to import both petroleum and electric power. For years after produc- 
tion dropped in the late 1970s, Albania's government considered 
statistics on the performance of its petroleum industry a state secret; 
as a consequence, data on the oil industry vary radically (see table 
10). Known petroleum reserves at existing Albanian drill sites to- 
taled about 200 million tons, but in 1991 recoverable stocks amount- 
ed to only 25 million tons. Albania's petroleum reserves generally 
were located in the tertiary layers in southwestern Albania, mainly 
in the triangle- shaped region delimited by Vlore, Berat, and Durres. 
The principal petroleum reserves were in the valley of the lower 
Devoll; in the valley of the Gjanice near Patos in the southwest, 
where they lay in sandy Middle or Upper Miocene layers; and in 
Marinez, between Kugove and Fier. Petroleum was refined in 
Ballsh, near Berat; Cerrik near Elbasan; and Kucove. 

In the 1980s, the petroleum and bitumen enterprises employed 
10 percent of Albania's industrial work force, controlled 25 per- 
cent of the country's industrial capital, and received almost 33 per- 
cent of its industrial investment funds. Nevertheless, the industry's 
share of the country's gross industrial production fell from 8.1 per- 
cent in 1980 to 6.6 percent in 1982 and perhaps as little as 5 per- 
cent in 1985. Albania produced only between 1.5 million tons and 
2.1 million tons of petroleum annually in the 1970s, according to 
reliable estimates. Output sagged further during the 1980s when 
extraction became increasingly difficult. Albania's wells pumped 
only 1.2 million tons of petroleum in 1990. At some sites, obsolete 
drilling equipment was extracting only 12 percent of the available 
petroleum in situations where modern drilling and pumping equip- 
ment would permit the extraction of as much as 40 percent. 

Petroleum was the first industry to attract direct foreign invest- 
ment after the communist economic system broke down. In 1990 
and 1991, the Albanian Petroleum and Gas Directorate entered 
into negotiations with foreign drilling and exploration firms for on- 
shore and offshore prospecting. In March 1991, the Albanian 
government and a German company, Denimex, signed a US$500 



142 



The Economy 



million contract for seismological studies, well drilling, and produc- 
tion preparation. Albania also negotiated exploration contracts with 
Agip of Italy and Occidental Petroleum, Chevron, and Hamilton 
Oil of the United States. 

Albania's known natural-gas reserves have been estimated at 
22,400 million cubic meters and lie mainly in the Kucove and Pa- 
tos areas. The country's wells pumped about 600,000 cubic meters 
of natural gas annually during the late 1980s. Fertilizer plants con- 
sumed about 40 percent of Albania's annual natural-gas produc- 
tion; power stations consumed about another 15 percent. Planners 
projected an increase in natural-gas production to about 1.1 mil- 
lion cubic meters per year by 1995, but output tumbled during 
the first quarter of 1991. 

Albania's unprofitable coal mines produced about 2.1 million 
tons in 1987. The coal, mainly lignite with a low calorific value, 
was being mined mainly in central Albania near Valias, Manez, 
and Krrabe; near Korce at Mborje and Drenove; in northern Tepe- 
lene at Memaliaj; and in Alarup to the south of Lake Ohrid. Coal 
washeries were located at Valias and Memaliaj . Albania imported 
about 200,000 tons of coke per year from Poland for its metalworks. 
Conditions inside Albania's coal mines were deplorable, with much 
of the work done by manual labor. Albania used most of its coal 
to generate electric power. 

About 80 percent of Albania's electric power came from a sys- 
tem of hydroelectric dams built after 1947 and driven by several 
rivers that normally carried abundant rainfall. Electric power output 
was estimated by Albanian officials at 3,984,000 megawatt hours 
in 1988. Outfitted with French-built turbines, Albania's largest pow- 
er station, the Koman hydroelectric plant on the Drin River, had 
a capacity of about 600 megawatts. The hydroelectric stations at 
Fierze and Dejas, also on the Drin River, had capacities of 500 
megawatts and 250 megawatts, respectively, and used Chinese-built 
turbines. Albania had no capacity to generate nuclear power, but 
in the early 1990s a research nuclear reactor was reportedly under 
construction with United Nations funds. In 1972 high-tension trans- 
mission lines linked Albania's power grid with Yugoslavia's dis- 
tribution system. Albania's first 400-kilovolt high-tension line 
carried power from Elbasan over the mountains to Korge, where 
a 220-kilovolt line carried it to Greece. 

Droughts in the late 1980s and in 1990 brought an energy crisis 
and a sharp drop in earnings from electric-power exports. In 1991 
heavy rainfall allowed Albania to resume electric-power exports 
to Yugoslavia and Greece. In the early 1990s, labor strikes and 
transformer burnouts — caused by the overloading of circuits when 



143 



Albania: A Country Study 



many Albanians turned to electricity to heat apartments after other 
fuel supplies ran out — regularly resulted in blackouts in towns across 
the country, and even sections of Tirane, producing disruption for 
months at a time. Although the electrical grid reached rural areas 
by 1970, the amount of power per household in farm areas was 
limited to 200 watts, only enough to power light bulbs. The chaos 
caused by economic collapse led to the destruction of about 25 per- 
cent of Albania's 30,000 kilometer power-distribution network. 

Albania's mineral resources are located primarily in the moun- 
tainous northern half of the country. Albanian miners extract mainly 
chromium ore, ferronickel, copper, bitumen, and salt. Obsolete 
equipment and mining techniques have hampered Albania's at- 
tempts to capitalize on its mineral wealth. High extraction and 
smelting costs, as well as Albania's overall economic collapse, have 
forced mine and plant closures. The government repeatedly has 
promised to take steps to reopen mines. 

Some production estimates placed Albania just behind South 
Africa and the former Soviet Union in the output of chromite, or 
chromium ore, which is vital to the production of stainless steel. 
Foreign studies estimated that Albania had more than 20 million 
tons of chromite reserves, located mainly near the towns of Korce, 
Mat, Elbasan, and Kukes. Export of chrome and chromium 
products provided one of Albania's most important sources of hard- 
currency income. Albania's chromite industry, however, consis- 
tently failed to meet plan targets and came under severe criticism 
in the waning years of the communist regime. Estimates for chro- 
mite output during 1989 ranged from 500,000 to 900,000 tons. The 
drought-related power cuts in 1990 and economic chaos in 1991 
forced the closing of ferrochrome enterprises at Burrel and Elba- 
san, and the government desperately sought sources of foreign cap- 
ital to invest in technological improvements. 

Albania's high-grade chromite reserves had been largely exhaust- 
ed by 1990. The poor quality of the remaining ore accounted for 
the country's worsening position in world markets. Impurities 
present in Albania's highest-grade chrome were largely the by- 
product of poor mining and smelting techniques and the use of an- 
tiquated Chinese equipment. The country's chromium industry 
also suffered because of inadequate transportation facilities. In the 
late 1980s, construction was under way on a rail link connecting 
the main chromium-ore production center at Bulqize, in central 
Albania with the port of Durres and the main line to Yugoslavia. 
In the late 1980s, Albania exported its chrome products mainly 
to Sweden, the United States, the Federal Republic of Germany 
(West Germany), Yugoslavia, and other East European countries. 



144 



A dilapidated industrial 
plant on the main road 
between the Yugoslav 
border and Tiran'e 
Courtesy Charles Sudetic 



Repairman in front 
of the cotton gin at a 
textile plant in the 
central coastal region 
Courtesy Charles Sudetic 




145 



Albania: A Country Study 

In 1980 Albanian chrome sales to the United States accounted for 
about 75 percent of the approximately US$20 million in trade be- 
tween the two countries. Despite its reported profitability, the chro- 
mium industry suffered from a lack of worker incentive because 
miners frequently went unpaid. In 1991 one of Albania's top 
economists revealed that the country had never earned more than 
US$60 million a year from chrome exports. 

Albania also produced copper, iron, and nickel. The main cop- 
per deposits, estimated at about 5 million tons, were located near 
the northern towns of Puke, Kukes, and Shkoder. During the 1980s, 
although the quality of copper ores was generally low, copper was 
the most successful industry in Albania's mineral-extraction sec- 
tor. Copper production rose from about 11,500 tons in 1980 to 
17,000 tons in 1988. The government aimed to export copper in 
a processed form and built smelters at Rubik, Kukes, and Lac. 
The industry's product mix included blister copper, copper wire, 
copper sulfate, and alloys. Albania's principal iron ore deposits, 
estimated at 20 million tons in the 1930s, were located near 
Pogradec, Kukes, Shkoder, and Peshkopi. The Elbasan Steel Com- 
bine was Albania's largest industrial complex. In operation since 
1966, the steelworks had obsolete Chinese equipment. Annual nickel 
output ranged from 7,200 to 9,000 tons in the 1980s. 

Albanian bitumen and asphalt deposits were located near the 
town of Selenice and in the Vjose River valley. Bitumen and asphalt 
production rose significantly after World War II, and most of the 
output was used for paving and waterproofing materials and in 
the manufacturing of insulators and roofing shingles. Miners had 
worked the Selenice deposits continuously for centuries before a 
lack of soap, boots, and basic equipment forced operations to cease 
when the centrally planned economy stalled. Geologists estimated 
that the Selenice deposits would not be exhausted until several de- 
cades into the twenty-first century at normal production rates. Al- 
bania also possessed abundant deposits of salt, found near Kavaje 
and Vlore. Limestone, a principal raw material for Albania's con- 
struction industry, was quarried throughout the country. 

Manufacturing 

Chemicals 

Albania's chemical industry was geared mainly toward produc- 
ing agrochemicals and chemicals for minerals processing. During 
the effort to achieve economic self-reliance in the 1970s and 1980s, 
Albania's government frantically tried to increase fertilizer output 
at plants in Kruje and Fier, which produced nitrogen and phosphate 



146 



The Economy 



from imported rock phosphate. Nitrogen and phosphate fertilizer 
production totaled about 350 billion tons between 1985 and 1990. 
A lack of spare parts and raw materials, especially natural gas, halt- 
ed production in mid- 1991 . Western economists estimated that the 
US$3 million needed for the main phosphate plants' rehabilita- 
tion might be too high a price to pay because domestic deposits 
of key raw materials were projected to last only three to five years 
at normal production rates. One of Albania's two ammonia-urea 
plants planned to restart operations in 1992, but it desperately need- 
ed spare parts and environmental protection equipment. The coun- 
try's lone pesticide plant, which did not stop producing DDT until 
1982, made lindane as well as products based on sulfur, zinc, cop- 
per, and mercury. In 1991 the facility was working at less than 
10 percent of capacity, and production was not likely to be stepped 
up because the plant was in poor condition and environmentally 
unsafe. Other chemical enterprises included a plastics-fabrication 
facility at Lushnje, a rubber and plastics works at Durres, and a 
paint and pigment factory in Tirane. 

Engineering 

During Albania's long effort to achieve autarky, economic plan- 
ners focused the country's engineering industry on producing tools, 
equipment, and spare parts for machinery that would substitute 
for imports. However, product standards suffered because of the 
poor quality of domestically produced materials, especially steel, 
and because of Albania's complete isolation from world techno- 
logical advances. The continuing operation of machinery long ob- 
solete in the outside world, including a textile mill in Tirane 
reminiscent of sweatshops in the turn-of-the-century United States, 
was a testament to the ingenuity of the workers in the engineering 
branch who fabricated spare parts. In addition to spare parts, several 
plants produced finished products, including the Enver Hoxha Auto 
and Tractor Plant in Tirane, which produced 7 5 -horsepower trac- 
tors, refrigerator compressors, and other products; the Drini En- 
gineering Works in Shkoder, which turned out heavy machinery; 
the Durres shipyards and agricultural machinery works; a precision- 
tool factory in Korce; and a textile equipment works in Tirane. 

Light Industry 

Statistics released in 1989 showed that the light industry sector 
met about 85 percent of domestic demand for consumer goods and 
provided about 22 percent of the state's revenue. The sector's output 
increased markedly from 1960 to 1990. Albanian light industry in- 
cluded textile plants, shoe factories, bicycle assembly plants, and 



147 



Albania: A Country Study 

a host of other factories. The communist government scattered tex- 
tile plants throughout the country. The largest textile factory, the 
Tirane Textile Combine — formerly called the Stalin Textile Com- 
bine because it was built with Soviet aid — was shut down frequently 
by workers striking for higher wages, better local transportation, 
and a regular supply of steam to run their antiquated equipment. 
In the early 1990s, Greek businessmen began setting up clothing 
and yarn factories in Gjirokaster and Sarande. Also, many Alba- 
nian businessmen established workshops producing handicrafts, 
carpets, weavings, and souvenirs for tourist shops and export. Al- 
bania's light industry branch also included nineteen furniture fac- 
tories, whose production was slashed to 15 percent of capacity or 
less in 1991 because of a lack of material inputs. 

Food Processing 

In the early 1990s, Albania's food-processing industry had at 
least one processing facility for the cereal, meat, and dairy branches 
in each of the country's twenty-six administrative districts without 
regard to efficiency or economies of scale. These facilities, which 
employed about 25,000 people, relied on the Ministry of Light In- 
dustry to allocate raw materials, arrange transportation, and market 
products. Years of depreciation and inadequate investment had left 
the 200 largest food-processing enterprises and about 750 smaller 
plants with obsolete, broken-down equipment. As a result, managers 
had little experience in obtaining materials or marketing, and the 
plants functioned inefficiently and produced low-quality goods. 
Minimal hygiene and sanitation standards went unmet. Shortages 
of raw materials and spare parts, along with transportation 
problems, forced many food-processing enterprises to curtail oper- 
ations; in 1991 alone, output fell 35 percent from the previous year. 
When the government loosened controls on food and vegetable 
prices in 1991, the official marketing network collapsed, cutting 
off the supply of raw materials to the country's thirty-one canner- 
ies. As unofficial prices rose, supply flows to the twenty-seven state- 
owned slaughterhouses dried up. The thirty-two district-level and 
550 village dairies survived only by paying unofficial prices for milk 
and cooperating with private traders. 

In the early 1990s, Albania's thirty-eight flour mills normally 
employed between thirteen and 257 people and could grind be- 
tween eight tons and 160 tons of flour per day. The seventy state- 
owned bakeries in urban areas produced about 370,000 tons of 
bread annually. The government privatized many of the country's 
village bakeries, which had a 200,000-ton total annual production 
capacity. Albania's lone modern yeast factory could produce about 



148 



Butcher at work 
in a private 
shop in central 
Tirane, 1991 
Courtesy Charles Sudetic 




600 tons annually, which was inadequate to meet the country's 
needs. Albania had ten pasta factories and two starch factories. Free- 
market prices four times higher than official levels left state-owned 
mills and bakeries unable to compete with private millers and bakers 
for available grain supplies. 

State-farm managers and private farmers radically reduced the 
amount of hectarage producing oilseed, cotton, and tobacco be- 
cause state prices were low and there were no private markets offer- 
ing higher prices. Tobacco and sugar-beet production decreased 
less drastically because state enterprises, including the Durres tobac- 
co factory and the country's only sugar-beet refinery, offered farm- 
ers advance purchase contracts at relatively attractive prices. 
Albania's vegetable-oil industry consisted of twenty-seven olive- 
oil plants capable of pressing 755 tons of olives daily; eleven 
sunflower-oil plants with a daily capacity of 262 tons of seeds; seven- 
teen oil-extraction plants with a daily capacity of 270 tons of olive, 
cotton-seed, corn, and sunflower pulp; and ten obsolete oil-refinery 
units with a daily capacity of 110 tons of sunflower oil and soya 
oil. Town and district plants botded edible oils. The country also 
had four soap factories and one margarine plant. 

Construction 

In the late 1980s, Albania's construction enterprises, which con- 
centrated mostly on adding to the country's housing stock and 



149 



Albania: A Country Study 



industrial capacity, built about 14,000 dwellings annually. Uncer- 
tainties about landownership and problems with supplies of build- 
ing materials, financing, and wages halted the construction industry 
in the early 1990s. The government legalized private construction 
firms, and private companies and individuals began applying to 
the Ministry of Construction for building permits soon after ques- 
tions concerning property ownership were resolved. Reports in the 
national press included complaints that many people were construct- 
ing homes and buildings on property they did not own or on land 
better suited to mechanized agriculture. The government proposed 
a draft law to govern zoning and construction standards. 

Cement factories were located in Elbasan and Vlore, and there 
was a production facility for prefabricated concrete structures in 
Tirane. Brick kilns were located in Tirane, Elbasan, Korce, 
Lushnje, Dibre, and Fier. 

Environmental Problems 

The communist regime's policy of developing heavy industry 
at all costs caused significant environmental problems. Air and 
water pollution went unchecked. Despite the scarcity of traffic, a 
pall of diesel fumes lingered over the country's main roads, a by- 
product of the poorly refined fuel that powered Albania's trucks 
and buses. The Elbasan Steel Combine, Albania's largest indus- 
trial complex, represented a typical industrial polluter. Proclaimed 
a symbol of Albania's " second liberation" when it became opera- 
tional in 1966, the steelworks was equipped with 1950s- vintage 
Chinese furnaces that filled the Shkumbin River valley with smoke, 
poisonous gases, and orange-colored particulate. The cyanic acid, 
ammonia, phenol, and other pollutants that the mill dumped into 
the river itself rendered it practically lifeless. A United Nations team 
recommended closing the facility because of the pollution problem. 

Transportation and Communications 

In the early 1990s, the rock-strewn roadways, unstable rail lines, 
and obsolete telephone network crisscrossing Albania represented 
the remnants of the marked improvements that were made after 
World War II. Enver Hoxha's xenophobia and lust for control had 
kept Albania isolated, however, as the communications revolution 
transformed the wider world into a global village. Even internal 
travel amounted to something of a luxury for many Albanians dur- 
ing communism's ascendancy. For years, peasants needed special 
passes to visit nearby districts, and until 1990 the government 
banned private ownership of automobiles. Urban mass transit con- 
sisted primarily of bus lines for ferrying workers between home 



150 



The Economy 



and work. Breakdowns in Tirane's bus lines sometimes forced em- 
ployees to walk to work or pay for rides in the beds of passing trucks. 
The communications system sustained severe damage in the chaos 
of the economic collapse as people ripped down telephone lines to 
use as fencing. Despite generally deteriorating conditions, the im- 
portation of fleets of used cars and buses and popular hunger for 
contact with the outside world raised hopes that matters would 
improve. 

Road Transportation 

In 1987 Albania had about 6,700 kilometers of paved roads and 
between 9,000 and about 15,000 kilometers of other roads suita- 
ble for motor vehicles (see fig. 7). The total length of Albania's 
roads had more than doubled in about three decades, and by the 
1980s almost all of the country's remote mountain areas were con- 
nected, at least by dirt roads, with the capital city and ports. The 
country's roads, however, were generally narrow, poorly marked, 
pocked with holes, and in the early 1990s often crowded with pedes- 
trians and people riding mules, bicycles, and horse-drawn carts. 
Even in tiny villages, hundreds of people of all ages gathered daily 
along main roads waving their arms seeking rides, and gangs of 
children often blocked rural highways hoping to coax foreign travel- 
ers into tossing them candy. Heavy snowfalls cut off some moun- 
tain areas for weeks at a time. Central government funding of local 
road maintenance effectively ended in 1991, and the breakdown 
of repair vehicles because of a lack of spare parts threatened to close 
access to some remote areas. A group of Greek construction com- 
panies signed a protocol with the Albanian government in July 1990 
to build a 200-kilometer road across the southern part of the coun- 
try, extending from the Albanian-Greek border to Durres. The 
project was scheduled to last four years and cost US$500 million. 

Despite the appalling quality of Albania's roads, most of the coun- 
try's freight was conveyed over them in a fleet of about 15,000 
smoke-belching trucks. According to official figures, in 1987 Al- 
bania's roadways carried about 66 percent of the country's total 
freight tonnage. In 1991 the Albanian government lifted the 
decades-old ban on private-vehicle ownership. The country's roads, 
once almost devoid of motor traffic, began filling up with reckless- 
ly driven cars that had been snapped up in used-car lots across 
Europe. Car imports numbered about 1,500 per month, and a 
black-market car lot began operating just off Tirane's main square. 
Traffic in the capital remained light, but traffic lights and other 
control devices were urgently needed to deal with the multiplying 
number of privately owned cars. Albanian entrepreneurs also 



151 



Albania: A Country Study 

imported used Greek buses and started carrying passengers on in- 
tercity routes that did not exist or had been poorly serviced during 
the communist era. Gangs of hijackers and thieves, who preyed 
on truck and automobile traffic, made road travel hazardous in 
some regions. 

Railroads 

In 1991 Albania's 509 kilometers of standard- gauge rail lines 
linked Shkoder with Durres, Tirane, Elbasan, Pogradec, Ballsh, 
and Vlore. The country's only international rail link, opened in 
1986, connected Shkoder with Yugoslavia's rail system. Albania's 
communist government focused on developing new rail lines to serve 
mining regions and the coastal plain. According to official figures, 
in 1987 and 1988 Albania's railroad carried about 33 percent of 
the country's total freight tonnage for that period. The opening 
of the rail link with Yugoslavia facilitated the movement of goods 
to Europe, and Yugoslav railroads reportedly shipped 174,300 tons 
of Albanian goods in the first half of 1990, a 19.4 percent increase 
over the first half of 1989. None of Albania's railroads was electri- 
fied. In 1991 vandals and thieves caused so much damage to the 
tracks and rolling stock that the rail system's transport capacity 
was cut in half; operations later ceased altogether. 

Air Transportation 

In 1977 Albania's government signed an agreement with Greece, 
opening the country's first air links with noncommunist Europe. 
By 1991 Tirane had air links with many major European cities, 
including Paris, Rome, Zurich, Vienna, and Budapest. Tirane was 
served by a small airport located twenty-eight kilometers from the 
capital at the village of Rinas. Albania had no regular domestic 
air service. A Franco- Albanian joint venture launched Albania's 
first private airline, Ada Air, in 1991 . The company offered flights 
in a thirty-six-passenger airplane four days each week between Ti- 
rane and Bari, Italy, and a charter service for domestic and inter- 
national destinations. 

Water Transportation 

Albania's main seaports are Durres, Vlore, Sarande, and Sheng- 
jin. By 1983 there was regular ferry, freight, and passenger ser- 
vice from Durres to Trieste, Italy. In 1988 ferry service was estab- 
lished between Sarande and the Greek island of Corfu. A regular 
lake ferry linked the Macedonian town of Ohrid with Pogradec. 
The estimated total displacement of Albania's merchant fleet was 
56,000 tons in 1986. The limited capacity of the wharves at Durres 



152 



The Economy 

caused severe bottlenecks in the distribution of foreign food aid 
in 1991. 

Telecommunications 

Until 1990 Albania was one of the world's most isolated and con- 
trolled countries, and installation and maintenance of a modern 
system of international and domestic telecommunications was 
precluded. Callers previously needed operator assistance even to 
make domestic long-distance calls. Albania's telephone density was 
the lowest in Europe, at 1.4 units for every 100 inhabitants. Ti- 
rane accounted for about 13,000 of the country's 42,000 direct lines; 
Durres, the main port city, ranked second with 2,000 lines; the 
rest were concentrated in Shkoder, Elbasan, Vlore, Gjirokaster, 
and other towns. At one time, each village had a telephone but 
during the land redistribution of the early 1990s peasants knocked 
out service to about 1 ,000 villages by removing telephone wire for 
fencing. Most of Albania's telephones were obsolete, low-quality 
East European models, some dating from the 1940s; workers at 
a Tirane factory assembled a small number of telephones from 
Italian parts. In the early 1990s, Albania had only 240 microwave 
circuits to Italy and 180 to Greece carrying international calls. The 
Albanian telephone company had also installed two U-20 Italtel 
digital exchanges. The exchange in Tirane handled international, 
national, and local calls; the Durres exchange handled only local 
calls. Two United States firms handled direct-dial calls from the 
United States to Tirane. 

The communist regime used radio and television for propagan- 
da purposes. In 1992 the Albanian government owned and oper- 
ated seventeen AM radio stations and one FM station that broadcast 
two national programs and various regional and local programs. 
An estimated 514,000 Albanians had radio receivers in 1987, ac- 
cording to the United States government. Nine television stations, 
also controlled by the communist regime, broadcast to the approx- 
imately 255,000 television sets owned by Albanians in 1987. 
Although the regime gave minimal support to domestic commu- 
nications, it provided for an extensive external shortwave and 
medium- wave system. Programs were broadcast in eight foreign 
languages, in addition to Albanian, and reached Africa, the Mid- 
dle East, North America, South America, and Europe. Albania's 
external broadcast service was one of the largest such services in 
the world. The programming was heavily propagandist, accord- 
ing to Western observers. 



155 




154 



Albania: A Country Study 

Retail Trade, Services, and Tourism 

Retail shops and service businesses opened all over Albania after 
the communists surrendered control of domestic trade and released 
their stranglehold on private economic initiative. Thousands of fruit 
and vegetable mongers converged on the streets of towns and cit- 
ies. Private entrepreneurs bought out formerly state-run stores and 
restaurants and threw open the doors to new shops and workrooms. 
Import restrictions and price controls on food stimulated a lively 
black market. The Albanian Stalinists' aversion to the outside world 
had stunted the development of a tourism industry. From 1991, 
however, the government worked desperately to attract foreign 
visitors to replenish its hard-currency coffers. 

Retail Trade and Services 

Albania's militaristic supply distribution system had litde in com- 
mon with the retail trade sector in the capitalist world before 1990. 
The state fixed prices, determined which goods would appear on 
store shelves, and paid shop managers and clerks set salaries. The 
distribution system grew considerably after World War II, with 
the ratio of shops to inhabitants increasing from 1:896 in 1950 to 
1:278 in 1988. There were two supply networks: one operated 
direcdy by the state, the other administered by local collectives under 
state supervision. The state-run supply network carried a narrow 
range of consumer goods that were, except in rare cases, domesti- 
cally produced. The Ministry of Domestic Trade controlled about 
85 percent of the state network. The balance fell under the juris- 
diction of the Ministry of the Communal Economy, which managed 
repair and other workshops; the Ministry of Health, which oper- 
ated pharmacies; and the Ministry of Education, which ran book- 
shops and art and handicraft stores. The collective-run shops dealt 
mostly in farm-related products but greatly improved the supply 
of consumer goods in rural areas. 

The limited assortment and supply of consumer products avail- 
able through retail outlets forced Albanians to become expert at 
improvising and dealing with shortages. The government imposed 
a rationing system on all consumer items in September 1946 and 
did not lift restrictions on nonfood items until 1956 and on food 
items until 1957. Cutoffs of Soviet and Chinese aid and failures 
in the agricultural sector led to severe food shortages in the early 
1960s and again in the early 1980s, when the authorities reimposed 
meat rationing. The rural population clearly depended to a large 
extent on the personal plots of collective-farm members for basic 



156 



Typical city bus waiting at 
a turnaround near the 
port city of Dunes 
Courtesy Charles Sudetic 




Old Albanian man 
riding a donkey 
Courtesy Charles Sudetic 




157 



Albania: A Country Study 



food items for extended periods. The state distribution system failed 
to compensate for the loss from urban markets of produce grown 
on personal plots after the government restricted plot sizes in the 
1980s. Sales of food products made up about 61.5 percent of the 
retail trade at about 10,600 shops in 1983. The total did not take 
into account the commerce in goods within agricultural coopera- 
tives. Albania's economic planners neglected the country's service 
sector to an extent unknown even in other centrally planned 
economies. 

The economic reforms of the early 1990s broke down the barri- 
ers that for decades had kept would-be private entrepreneurs from 
the retail marketplace. At first, peasants began setting up road- 
side fruit and vegetables stands or carrying their produce to mar- 
kets in the towns and cities. Later, small shops, restaurants, and 
workrooms opened their doors and began hiring workers. Soon after 
the communist economic system broke down, the government priva- 
tized about 25,000 retail stores and service enterprises — about half 
of the small state enterprises in the retail and service sectors — 
mostly through direct sales to workers. One businessman, using 
French capital, opened up import shops and duty-free stores in the 
country's largest hotels. But supply problems hampered retail oper- 
ations. The new entrepreneurs also encountered problems with local 
officials who arbitrarily imposed fees and license requirements based 
on obsolete communist-era laws or on no laws at all. The owner 
of Tirane's first private restaurant, for example, complained that 
officials demanded an annual license fee equivalent to about 
US$10,000. In 1991 government officials were at work on a com- 
mercial code. 

Black Market 

The food shortage, price controls on staple items, and the ease 
with which foreign food aid could be diverted from normal distri- 
bution channels produced ideal conditions for a brisk black mar- 
ket. Basic food items, which officially still had government-fixed 
prices, became difficult, and often impossible, to purchase at stores 
but appeared at significantly higher prices on the black market 
alongside items pilfered from aid consignments. Nonfood items loot- 
ed from warehouses were available from black-market dealers at 
many times normal prices. Fines for trafficking in smuggled and 
stolen goods were trivial compared to the potential profits. 

Tourism 

No serious consideration was given to developing a tourism in- 
dustry until several years after Enver Hoxha's death. After 1989 



158 



The Economy 



the government viewed tourism as offering one of the country's 
best chances to earn hard currency relatively quickly. In 1989 and 
1990, record numbers of tourists visited Albania, although the to- 
tals themselves were unimpressive. About 14,400 foreigners were 
permitted to enter the country in 1989 and about 30,000 in 1990. 
Most of these tourists, however, were single-day visitors on excur- 
sions from the Greek island of Corfu. Albanian officials expected 
the country's seacoast and mountains to draw significantly great- 
er numbers of visitors. But potential tourist areas, with the possi- 
ble exception of Tirane, lacked even the most basic amenities. 
Tirane itself lacked hotel capacity, and there were few foreign in- 
vestors willing to risk funds on an Albanian venture. Furthermore, 
the country's seacoast and mountains were not sufficiently pristine 
to support predictions of a coming boom in tourism. 

Foreign Economic Relations 

Enver Hoxha's regime had maintained a legal stranglehold on 
the country's foreign commerce since World War II through state- 
run trading enterprises. For decades Albania had maintained no 
representative commercial offices in Western countries, and so deep 
was the Albanian dictator's animus toward the Soviet Union that 
the two countries carried on no trade at all for decades after their 
split in the early 1960s. Hoxha and his proteges created a formid- 
able barrier to economic relations with the West in 1976 by incor- 
porating into the country's constitution an amendment banning 
borrowing from capitalist countries. Trade with the West increased 
after Hoxha's death in 1985, but it was not until the end of the 
decade that Albania's government surrendered its monopoly on 
foreign trade. Lawlessness and graft soon made a mockery of almost 
all legal controls on foreign transactions. In mid- 1991 the govern- 
ment was working to set up a free-market-based foreign trade sys- 
tem. After more than a decade of "self-reliance," during which 
balanced trade had been an essential element of Hoxha's econom- 
ic doctrine, the country's economic collapse forced its foreign-trade 
balance and balance of payments deeply into the red. Albanians 
had to rely on outside aid just to feed themselves. 

Foreign Trade Organization 

Until 1990 Albania's government exercised a monopoly on for- 
eign trade and controlled it through a highly centralized manage- 
ment mechanism. Following Stalin's model, all external transactions 
were conducted through foreign-trade enterprises under the 
guidance of the Ministry of Foreign Trade. In the 1980s, six govern- 
ment foreign- trade enterprises dealt in commodities; five covered 



159 



Albania: A Country Study 

services; and two more were concerned with foreign copyrights and 
licensing agreements. Domestic firms paid for imported goods at 
fixed wholesale prices that bore little relationship to world prices; 
they also received fixed wholesale prices for exports. The state bank 
retained all foreign-currency earnings and covered any losses the 
foreign-trade enterprises sustained. As a matter of policy, the re- 
gime stressed exports and maintained strictiy balanced trade on 
an ongoing, country-by-country basis until 1990. Foreign compa- 
nies could win or lose contracts depending on Albania's current 
trade balance with their home country. Albanian traders generally 
purchased only vital goods and usually paid in cash. Western trade 
restrictions on East European countries applied to Albania for years 
because the country never formally withdrew its membership from 
Comecon, even though it did not participate in Comecon activities. 

The downfall of the centrally planned economic system brought 
sweeping changes to Albania's method of conducting foreign trade. 
The government abandoned its strict monopoly on foreign com- 
merce in August 1990, when it began allowing state-owned enter- 
prises to conduct foreign trade, retain foreign-exchange earnings, 
and maintain foreign-currency accounts. Private Albanian com- 
panies won the right to carry on foreign trade a year later when 
the government announced that domestic firms would be permit- 
ted to export everything except certain food items. Strapped by 
a balance of payments deficit and mounting external debt, the 
authorities continued, however, to limit imports. Tirane also im- 
posed customs duties ranging from 10 percent for food to 30 per- 
cent for new machinery and equipment. The Ministry of Foreign 
Economic Relations, which replaced the Ministry of Foreign Trade, 
attempted to stimulate exports by establishing a department for 
trade consultation that provided data on world prices, product avail- 
ability, types of trade, and other information to state and private 
enterprises as well as to foreign firms interested in doing business 
with Albania. The authorities planned to streamline the tariff sys- 
tem and abolish state trading enterprises. 

In the lawlessness that beset Albania after the communist order 
began to break down, trade laws were generally ignored by the 
country's private businessmen and black marketeers, especially eth- 
nic Albanians from Serbia's province of Kosovo (see Glossary) and 
emigres in Europe and the United States. Graft pervaded the cus- 
toms service. Italian soldiers said customs officers who inspected 
containers of aid from Italy left the Durres dockyards with food 
jammed into their clothing. High-ranking government officials 
resigned after disclosures that they had smuggled to Greece 1,000 
tons of Italian cooking oil sent as food aid. Peasants also smuggled 



160 




161 



Albania: A Country Study 

livestock to markets across the Greek order, and border officials 
in Yugoslavia and Greece complained of Albanians coming across 
and burglarizing homes. 

Foreign Trade Balance and Balance of Payments 

After more than a decade of autarky and trade surpluses, the 
force of Albania's economic collapse pulled the country's foreign- 
trade balance and balance of payments into the red. Albania's ex- 
ports slipped more than 50 percent to about US$120 million in the 
early 1990s, and the influx of emergency food and commodity aid 
contributed almost half of a 20 percent increase in imports. In 1991 
Albania's external current-accounts deficit, excluding official trans- 
fers, widened to more than US$250 million, which equaled about 
30 percent of the country's GDP before the economy seized up. 
In an effort to narrow the gap, the authorities practically depleted 
Albania's meager foreign-currency reserves. In the late 1980s, the 
government began ignoring the constitutional ban on foreign 
credits, and by mid- 1991 the country's total convertible-currency 
debt was soaring toward US$400 million. Shortfalls in the output 
of electric power, minerals, and other goods set off another sig- 
nificant slide in export earnings. Officials hoped remittances from 
the thousands of Albanians who had fled to Greece and Italy would 
help return Albania's balance of payments to an even keel, but 
in the early 1990s these emigres were mostly sending home hard 
goods, such as used cars, unavailable in the homeland. 

Trade Partners 

In the mid-1980s, Albania claimed to be carrying on trade with 
more than fifty countries although the value of the goods exchanged 
with most of them was small. Trade with IMF member countries, 
however, was in some cases substantial (see table 11, Appendix). 
Neighboring Yugoslavia accounted for about 18 percent of Alba- 
nia's trade volume; the remainder was divided almost evenly be- 
tween the communist and capitalist countries. Tirane's main trading 
partners in Eastern Europe were Romania, Poland, Bulgaria, and 
Czechoslovakia. In the late 1970s, Albania's break with China 
forced its commercial representatives to redouble their efforts to 
find new trading partners in the free-market world. The value of 
Albania's trade with the West stood at about US$200 million by 
the late 1980s. In 1988 its main Western trading partners were Italy 
(US$65 million in trade turnover), West Germany (US$52 mil- 
lion), Greece (US$16.4 million), and France (US$14 million). 

Albanian-Yugoslav trade, torpid throughout a decades-long chill 
in the two countries' relations, revived after Albania's break with 



162 



The Economy 



China. The chamber of commerce of each nation opened offices 
in the other's capital city, and in 1986 a new rail line to Yugosla- 
via linked Albania with the European rail network for the first time. 
Albanian imports from Yugoslavia included reinforcing steel, rail- 
road track, steel piping, cables, bricks, pharmaceuticals, electron- 
ics, textiles, food, and capital goods. Yugoslavia imported electric 
power, tobacco, chrome, bitumen, gasoline, natural gas, cognac, 
and food from Albania. The fallout from the political crisis in Yu- 
goslavia's Kosovo province, populated mainly by ethnic Albani- 
ans, had surprisingly little effect on Albanian- Yugoslav trade until 
the early 1990s, when war erupted between Croatia and Serbia. 
In 1991 the Albanian government and leaders of the ethnic Alba- 
nian community in Kosovo worked toward establishing a joint, 
Tirane-based commission to promote stronger economic ties. 

After its break with the Soviet Union in 1960, Albania played 
no part in the activities of Comecon. Trade with the Eastern bloc — 
with the glaring exception of the Soviet Union, with which Alba- 
nia maintained no trade relations — increased after Albania broke 
with China. Generally, Albania supplied its communist-world trad- 
ing partners with metal ores and agricultural products; it import- 
ed machinery, transportation equipment, and some consumer 
goods. The Albanians obtained rolled steel and coking coal from 
Poland, pumps from Hungary, trucks and tires from Czechoslovak- 
ia, sheet steel from Bulgaria, and textile machinery and fertilizers 
from East Germany. The Albanians also signed a contract with 
Hungary to build a pharmaceuticals plant in Tirane. After a five- 
year hiatus, China and Albania resumed trade activities in 1983; 
the new relationship, however, lacked the intimacy of the twelve- 
year period of close cooperation in the 1960s and early 1970s. Al- 
bania carried on a modicum of trade with the Democratic Peo- 
ple's Republic of Korea (North Korea) and Cuba. 

In the mid-1980s, the growing interest of small import firms in 
the Albanian market accounted for a sharp increase in trade with 
Italy and West Germany. Italy was Albania's largest Western trad- 
ing partner in the late 1980s. Italian exports to Albania accounted 
for about 20 percent of the West's exports to Albania in 1985, and 
Italy purchased 16.5 percent of Albania's exports to Western coun- 
tries. Italy sold Albania metalworking and food-processing ma- 
chinery, chemicals, iron and steel, metal products, vehicles, and 
plastics. The Italians imported petroleum products, chrome, cop- 
per, nickel and iron ore, and farm products from Albania. In the 
mid-1980s, West Germany accounted for about 15.5 percent of 
Western exports to Albania and 1 5 percent of Western purchases 
from Albania. Chromium ore and concentrates represented about 



163 



Albania: A Country Study 

50 percent of Albania's exports to West Germany in 1985. The 
Albanians bought machinery, transportation equipment, and 
manufactured goods from West Germany. The collapse of Alba- 
nia's Stalinist economic system opened the door for greater trade 
with Western Europe. In 1991 Tirane was negotiating its first eco- 
nomic agreement with the European Community, under which each 
party would grant the other most-favored-nation status (see 
Glossary) . 

For decades Albania was subject to all United States controls 
on exports to East European nations. The country did not have 
most-favored-nation treatment and was not eligible for credits or 
loan guarantees from the Export-Import Bank of the United States 
(Eximbank). Nevertheless, the volume of United States trade with 
Albania grew from about US$1 million in 1973 to over US$20 mil- 
lion in 1982; it fell, however, to US$7.7 million in 1986. In 1991 
the United States exported coal, wheat, butterfat, powdered milk, 
and other products to Albania with a total value of about US$18 
million; to the United States, Albania exported primarily spices 
and fruit preserves worth about US$3.2 million. In 1991 Albania 
was attempting to conclude an economic agreement with the United 
States by which each nation would extend to the other most-favored- 
nation status. 

Albania's trade with developing countries, which was driven 
mostly by a need to find and nurture political alliances, amounted 
to only about US$10 million out of a total trade turnover of US$513 
million reported in 1982. Trade with developing countries was hin- 
dered because Albania sold its raw materials to and bought vital 
manufactured goods from wealthier, industrialized nations. Algeria, 
Costa Rica, Egypt, Iran, Libya, Mexico, and Turkey had had trade 
agreements with communist Albania. 

Commodity Pattern of Trade 

Raw materials, fuels, and capital goods accounted for the bulk 
of Albania's foreign trade before the communist system fell apart 
(see table 12; table 13, Appendix). The communist regime strove 
to increase the value of the country's exports by producing and 
selling industrial and semifinished products instead of raw materi- 
als and foodstuffs. In the late 1980s, raw materials and industrial 
goods made up about 75 percent of exports, which mainly consist- 
ed of petroleum, chromite and chrome products, copper wire, nickel, 
and electric power. Albania's light industries contributed export earn- 
ings from sales of bicycles, textiles, handicrafts, souvenirs, wood 
products, briar pipes, and rugs. Cognac, cigarettes, fruit, olives, to- 
matoes, canned sardines, anchovies, and other agricultural products 



164 



The Economy 



also accounted for a share of exports. In 1989 Albania imported 
about US$245 million in goods from the West, up from US$165 
million in 1988. It imported mainly capital goods, semifinished 
products, and replacement parts necessary to keep industries, es- 
pecially export-producing industries, functioning. Imports included 
locomotives, trailers, machinery, textiles, synthetic fibers, lubri- 
cants, dyes, plastics, and certain raw materials. Consumer goods 
such as components for television sets and equipment to outfit en- 
terprises serving foreign tourists accounted for a smaller percen- 
tage of imports. 

Activities of Foreign Companies in Albania 

Albania's 1976 constitution specifically prohibited joint ventures 
between Albanian enterprises and foreign firms. However, the se- 
vere economic crisis of the early 1990s persuaded the government 
to create a rudimentary framework for regulating the business ac- 
tivities of foreign firms on Albanian soil. Decrees were issued provid- 
ing for investment protection and the creation of joint ventures 
between Albanian and foreign companies. At least in theory, the 
August 1991 law on economic activity allowed foreign companies 
to repatriate, in foreign currency, accumulated capital and profits 
from economic activities. More than two dozen foreign companies 
had already signed joint- venture contracts by August 1991 . Almost 
half of the joint ventures involved small investments in shoe and 
textile manufacturing, fishing, retail trade, tourism, and construc- 
tion. Foreign petroleum companies also signed agreements to ex- 
plore for petroleum reserves beneath the Adriatic Sea. Other potential 
investors came from Italy and Greece, the Albanian emigre com- 
munity in the West, and Kosovo's community of ethnic Albanians. 

In October 1991, Albania joined the IMF and afterward worked 
to secure the IMF standby credit agreement prerequisite to receipt 
of credits from the World Bank and other international institutions. 
Albania also became a member of the Multilateral Investment 
Guarantee Agency, a part of the World Bank Group; signed bilater- 
al trade accords and foreign-investment protection agreements with 
Italy, Germany, Greece, and Turkey; and signed an agreement 
with the Overseas Private Insurance Corporation, which insures 
foreign investments by United States companies. Greek business- 
men also began operating clothing and yarn factories, and Greek 
firms signed agreements to transport natural gas as well as con- 
tracts for road construction, machinery sales, and shipping. Alba- 
nia also signed import-credit arrangements with Turkey, which 
agreed to give Albania technical assistance in banking and other 
areas. 



165 



Albania: A Country Study 

Foreign Assistance 

Throughout its modern history, with the exception of the disas- 
trous "self-reliance" period in the 1970s and 1980s, Albania has 
relied on foreign aid to achieve economic growth. Each interrup- 
tion of aid has had immediate and dramatic effects. Between 1955 
and 1960, foreign assistance augmented Albania's state budget 233 
percent, and industrial output rose by an average of 16.5 percent 
annually; between 1960 and 1965, aid augmented the budget 130 
percent, and yearly industrial output rose only by an average 6.8 
percent annually. 

The Stalinist economic system's breakdown left Albania with 
acute shortages of many of the basic necessities of life, especially 
food. Having no choice but to turn to the West for aid, Albania's 
leaders got responses from the United States, the member states 
of the European Community, and Turkey; Greece and Italy were 
particularly forthcoming. Italy, which was interested in providing 
assistance mainly in order to stem inflows of Albanian job seek- 
ers, pledged more than US$300 million in food, raw materials, and 
replacement parts alone. Western economists estimated that in 1992 
Albania would need some US$500 million worth of food, basic con- 
sumer goods, and materials for its factories. Law-enforcement 
problems and poor, often predatory, local administrations com- 
plicated aid deliveries, and on occasion mobs stormed and looted 
food warehouses and trucks. In many areas, the local communist 
bosses controlled the only aid-distribution network. They often stole 
relief supplies and denied deliveries to ordinary people. In mid- 1991 
the Italian army launched "Operation Pelican," sending 750 troops 
to protect convoys delivering aid from the ports of Vlore and Durres 
to Albania's twenty-six district centers. Western aid to Albania was 
also directed at longer-term goals. In July 1991, the European Com- 
munity enrolled Albania in its program for technical assistance to 
the former communist countries. Germany granted assistance to 
improve health services, the drinking-water supply, and student 
housing. 

Prospects for Reform 

In 1992, after close to fifty years of communist-imposed isola- 
tion following five centuries of Ottoman domination, the Albani- 
an people had little awareness of the outside world and possessed 
Europe's least developed trade network. The Albanians faced the 
daunting task of reviving their moribund factories and workshops 
and learning the realities of modern capitalism while building a 



166 



The Economy 



market economy from scratch. Burgeoning unemployment, fall- 
ing output, acute food shortages, and widespread lawlessness eroded 
most grounds for optimism in the prospects for rapid success. In- 
dividual Albanian factories could not switch on assembly lines be- 
cause idled plants, farms, mines, and generators elsewhere in the 
production chain were not supplying essential inputs. For most en- 
terprises, importing these inputs was impossible because Albania's 
nascent foreign-exchange market was not yet fully operative. Despite 
Albania's dire circumstances, World Bank and European Com- 
munity economists projected that the country's resource base and 
labor force could provide the basis for an escape from poverty if 
the government, with the international community's financial help, 
took urgent steps to establish the institutions and infrastructure 
needed to support a market economy and stimulate small-scale pri- 
vate entrepreneur ship in the farm sector. 

The government's immediate objective was to restore a secure 
food supply for the general population and provide income and 
employment for rural inhabitants. Albanian leaders turned to the 
international community for direct food aid and technical and 
material assistance for the farm sector. Boosting agricultural out- 
put was also a prerequisite for resuming industrial production be- 
cause many factories needed inputs of raw materials produced in 
the farm sector. Overall resumption of production had to be coor- 
dinated between state enterprises so as to create economic demand 
and establish a smooth flow of supplies. In 1992, despite the coun- 
try's inability to pay its international creditors, Albania looked to 
the IMF, World Bank, and individual Western countries to lend 
the money needed to jump start and stabilize the economy. Over 
the longer term, the Albanian economy's fate depends on the coun- 
try's political leadership restoring law and order, attracting pri- 
vate investors from abroad, and obtaining credits and aid from 
Western governments for the modernization of industry and agricul- 
ture. The last task is especially important because the lack of ex- 
pertise in international trade and poor quality of Albania's exports 
preclude the country's earning the foreign exchange necessary to 
improve infrastructure and increase production. Chronic unem- 
ployment is almost certain to be a reality in Albania until urbani- 
zation significantly slackens population growth. 

* * * 

Despite Albania's small size and its communist regime's almost 
pathological yearning for secrecy, a surprising amount of literature 
is available on the Balkan state's economy. The best descriptions 



167 



Albania: A Country Study 



of Albania's Stalinist system are Adi Schnytzer's Stalinist Econom- 
ic Strategy in Practice and Orjan Sjoberg's Rural Change and Develop- 
ment in Albania. Stavro Skendi's Albania, Peter R. Prifti's Socialist 
Albania since 1944, and Robert Owen Freedman's Economic Warfare 
in the Communist Bloc offer valuable historical insights into Alba- 
nia's economic development. Gramoz Pashko, the Albanian 
economist best known in the West, has also contributed several 
clearly written, compelling papers on Albania's communist eco- 
nomic system, including "The Albanian Economy at the Begin- 
ning of the 1990s." Both the Economist Intelligence Unit and 
Business International publish regular studies of the Albanian eco- 
nomic situation; the studies are particularly useful to persons ex- 
ploring the possibility of trading with the country or setting up 
business operations there. (For further information and complete 
citations, see Bibliography.) 



168 



Chapter 4. Government and Politics 




Albanian citizens celebrating victory after announcement that regime would 
permit multiparty elections, December 1990 



ALBANIA WAS THE LAST COUNTRY in Eastern Europe 
during the early 1990s to undergo a transition from a totalitarian 
communist regime to an incipient system of democracy. Because 
Albania was isolated from the outside world and ruled by a highly 
repressive, Stalinist- type dictatorship for more than four decades, 
this transition was especially tumultuous and painful, making a 
gradual approach to reform difficult. 

Following the establishment of the People's Republic of Albania 
in January 1946, Albania became a rigid police state, dominated 
completely by the communist party and by Marxism-Leninism. 
Although Albania operated under the facade of constitutional rule, 
the communist party, led by Enver Hoxha, who was also presi- 
dent of Albania, actually controlled all aspects of the political, so- 
cial, and economic systems. Hoxha pursued a repressive internal 
policy, while at the same time implementing a highly isolationist 
foreign policy. His reliance first on the financial aid and political 
protection of a sequence of patron states, then insistence on Alba- 
nia's economic self-reliance and a highly centralized economic sys- 
tem caused Albania to lag far behind its neighbors in terms of 
economic development. 

After Hoxha died in 1985, his hand-picked successor, Ramiz 
Alia, who became party leader while retaining his post as titular 
head of state (chairman of the Presidium of the People's Assem- 
bly), at first appeared to be carrying on Hoxha' s tradition of hard- 
line policies. But it soon became clear that he was more flexible 
than his predecessor and was willing to institute badly needed po- 
litical and economic reforms that attempted to prevent the coun- 
try from collapsing into anarchy. These reforms, however, were 
largely cosmetic and insufficient to meet the demands of the grow- 
ing radical elements in the population. By 1991, popular dissatis- 
faction with Alia's regime had mounted, causing considerable 
political instability and social unrest. The civil war in neighboring 
Yugoslavia (see Glossary) served only to exacerbate the growing 
political and social tension within Albania. Alia resigned follow- 
ing his party's resounding defeat in the spring 1992 multiparty 
election, and a new government undertook the task of building 
democracy in a country that for close to five decades had been iso- 
lated from the outside world, dominated by a highly repressive po- 
litical system, and devoid of free-market, private enterprise. 



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Albania: A Country Study 

Origins of the Political System 

The communists gained a foothold in Albanian politics during 
World War II , when they became the founders and leaders of the 
National Liberation Movement (NLM), which came into existence 
during the Italian and German occupations. Hoxha, a former 
schoolteacher who became first secretary of the Albanian Com- 
munist Party (ACP) in 1941, was a prominent wartime resistance 
leader and was largely responsible for the success of the communists 
in achieving a position of political dominance towards the end of 
the war. 

As leaders of the NLM, the Albanian communists were successful 
in arousing active opposition to the Italian army and, after Sep- 
tember 1943, to the German army. Toward the end of the war, 
the communists worked unceasingly to ensure that they would ex- 
ercise political power in liberated Albania. In October 1944, the 
renamed National Liberation Front transformed itself into the provi- 
sional democratic government of Albania, with Hoxha as prime 
minister. By the time German troops had withdrawn from Alba- 
nia in November 1944, almost all organized resistance to com- 
munism had been crushed. 

Albania after World War II 

The People's Republic of Albania was proclaimed on January 
11, 1946, by a newly elected People's Assembly. The assembly, 
which was elected in December 1945, initially included both com- 
munists and noncommunists. Within a year, however, all noncom- 
munists had been purged from the assembly and were subsequently 
executed. The communists had a monopoly of power by the end 
of 1946. 

The new regime acted swifdy to consolidate its position by break- 
ing up the power of the middle class and other perceived oppo- 
nents. The communist party tried before special tribunals those 
classified as "war criminals," a designation that came to include 
anyone who was unsympathetic to the new government. Members 
of the landed aristocracy and tribal chieftains were arrested and 
sent to labor camps. More than 600 leaders were executed during 
the new government's first two weeks in power. In an effort to 
strengthen its grip on the economy, the government promulgated 
a series of laws providing for strict state regulation of all industrial 
and commercial enterprises and foreign and domestic trade. The 
laws legalized the confiscation of property of political opponents in 
exile and anyone designated an "enemy of the people" and levied 
a crushing "war-profits tax" against the economically prosperous 



172 



Government and Politics 



members of the population. As part of its program to nationalize 
industry, the government confiscated all German and Italian as- 
sets in Albania and revoked all foreign economic concessions. All 
means of transportation were also nationalized. As far as the peasan- 
try was concerned, the new government was cautious. The Agrar- 
ian Reform Law of 1945 nationalized all forests and pasturelands, 
but landowners who possessed farm machinery were allowed to keep 
up to forty hectares for farming (see Communist Albania, ch. 1). 

The Hoxha Regime 

Hoxha was the most powerful leader in modern Albania, occupy- 
ing at times the posts of prime minister, minister of defense, and 
commander in chief of the armed forces, while continuing to serve 
as first secretary of the AC P. He was head of state from 1944 until 
1985. His main rival in the initial period of his rule was the minister 
of internal affairs and head of the dreaded secret police, Koci Xoxe. 
Xoxe was close to the Yugoslavs and was arrested in 1948 as a 
Titoist (see Glossary) following Albania's break with Yugoslavia. 
The next most influential political figure was Mehmet Shehu, who 
became prime minister when Hoxha relinquished this post in July 
1954. 

Hoxha' s efforts to impose a rigid, repressive political and govern- 
ment structure on Albania met with little active resistance until 
the country's declining standard of living and poor economic per- 
formance led to such dissatisfaction that unrest began to spread 
in 1965-66. In response, the Hoxha government initiated the Cul- 
tural and Ideological Revolution in February 1966, which was an 
attempt to reassert communist party influence on all aspects of life 
and rekindle revolutionary fervor. By 1973 demands for a relaxa- 
tion of party controls and for internal reforms were creating con- 
siderable pressure on Hoxha. The pressure led him to launch a 
series of purges of top cultural, military, and economic officials. 
In 1977, for example, an alleged "Chinese conspiracy" was un- 
covered, which resulted in the dismissal and arrest of several top 
military officials. 

In keeping with its Stalinist practices, Albania's government pur- 
sued a rigorously dogmatic line in domestic policy, instituting highly 
centralized economic planning and rigid restrictions on educational 
and cultural development. In 1976 a new constitution was promul- 
gated, the third such constitution since the communists came to 
power. The 1976 constitution, which changed the official name of 
the country to the People's Socialist Republic of Albania, was lit- 
tle different from the 1950 version. It paid lip service to such insti- 
tutions as the Supreme Court and the People's Assembly, but it 



173 



Albania: A Country Study 

affirmed the primary role of the communist party, known as the 
Albanian Party of Labor (APL) from 1948 until 1991. 

Whatever gains the Hoxha leadership achieved in socioeconomic 
terms were diminished by the sharp repression in all areas of life, 
and Hoxha' s decision to keep Albania isolated retarded the coun- 
try's technological growth to such an extent that it became eco- 
nomically inferior to all of its neighbors (see Economic Policy and 
Performance, ch. 3). 

The early 1980s were marked by further purges in the govern- 
ment and party in preparation for the impending succession to Hox- 
ha, who was in ill health. Although Prime Minister Shehu had been 
regarded as the second most powerful leader, especially because 
he had significant support in the police and military, Hoxha decided 
against naming him as his successor. Instead, Hoxha began a cam- 
paign against him, which culminated in Shehu 's alleged suicide 
in December 1981 . Hoxha then proceeded to arrest all of Shehu 's 
family and supporters. 

Alia Takes Over 

Before Hoxha died in April 1985, after more than forty years 
as the unchallenged leader, he had designated Ramiz Alia as his 
successor. Alia was born in 1925 and had joined the Albanian com- 
munist movement before he was twenty years old. He had risen 
rapidly under Hoxha' s patronage and by 1961 was a full member 
of the ruling Political Bureau (Politburo) of the APL. Hoxha chose 
Alia for several reasons. First, Alia had long been a militant fol- 
lower of Marxism- Leninism (see Glossary) and supported Hox- 
ha' s policy of national self-reliance. Alia also was favored by 
Hoxha' s wife Nexhmije, who had once been his instructor at the 
Institute of Marxism-Leninism. Alia's political experience was simi- 
lar to that of Hoxha; and inasmuch as he appeared to share Hox- 
ha' s views on most foreign and domestic issues, he easily 
accommodated himself to the totalitarian mode of ruling. That he 
had managed to survive several waves of extensive purges bespoke 
his political prowess and capacity for survival. 

The second-ranking member of the leadership after Hoxha' s 
death was Prime Minister Adil Qarcani, a full member of the Polit- 
buro since 1 96 1 . Among the fifteen candidate and full members 
of the party's Politburo in 1985, nine were members of the post- 
war generation and most had made their political careers after 
Albanian- Soviet ties were severed in 1961. By late 1986, both the 
Politburo and the party's other administrative organ, the Secretari- 
at, were dominated by Alia's supporters. 



174 



Government and Politics 



When Alia took over as first secretary of the APL, the country 
was in grave difficulty. Political apathy and cynicism were perva- 
sive, with large segments of the population having rejected the re- 
gime's values. The economy, which suffered from low productivity 
and permanent shortages of the most basic foodstuffs, showed no 
sign of improvement. Social controls and self-discipline had eroded. 
The intelligentsia was beginning to resist strict party controls and 
to criticize the regime's failure to observe international standards 
of human rights. Apparently recognizing the depth and extent of 
the societal malaise, Alia cautiously and slowly began to make 
changes in the system. His first target was the economic system. 
In an effort to improve economic efficiency, Alia introduced some 
economic decentralization and price reform in specific sectors. 
Although these changes marked a departure from the Hoxha re- 
gime, they did not signify a fundamental reform of the economic 
system. 

Alia did not relax censorship, but he did allow public discus- 
sions of Albania's societal problems and encouraged debates among 
writers and artists on cultural issues. In response to international 
criticism of Albania's record on human rights, the new leadership 
loosened some political controls and ceased to apply repression on 
a mass scale. In 1986 and 1989, general amnesties brought about 
the release of many long-term prisoners. Alia also took steps to es- 
tablish better ties with the outside world, strengthening relations 
with Greece, Italy, Turkey, and Yugoslavia. A loosening of restric- 
tions on travel and tourism resulted in a more promising outlook 
for Albania's tourist trade. 

By the late 1980s, Alia was supporting a campaign for more open- 
ness in the press and encouraging people to talk freely about Al- 
bania's problems. As a result, controversial articles on a range of 
topics began to appear in the press. Not everyone, however, was 
happy with Alia's cautious program of reform. The entrenched 
party bureaucrats were worried that they would lose their powers 
and privileges and hence resisted many of the changes. Thus Alia's 
regime was not able, or willing, to attempt changes that would put 
an end to the repressive elements of the system. 

Albania's Communist Party 

Albania's communist party, in early 1992, was in a state of tran- 
sition, and its future remained uncertain. Known from 1941 to 1948 
as the Albanian Communist Party, from November 1948 as the 
Albanian Party of Labor (APL), and from June 1991 as the So- 
cialist Party of Albania (SPA), the communist party was organized 
along lines similar to the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. 



175 



Albania: A Country Study 

The 1976 constitution recognized the special status of the APL, 
which controlled the political, cultural, and economic life in the 
country. According to Article 3 of the constitution, the party is the 
"leading political force of the state and of the society." The party 
was organized on the principle of democratic centralism (see Glos- 
sary), under which the minority had to submit to the majority and 
could not express disagreement after a vote. The highest organ of 
the party, according to the party statutes, was the party congress, 
which met for a few days every five years. Delegates to the party 
congress were elected at party conferences held at the regional, dis- 
trict, and city levels. The party congress examined and approved 
reports submitted by the Central Committee, discussed general 
party policies, and elected a Central Committee. The latter was 
the next highest echelon in the party hierarchy and generally in- 
cluded all key officials in the government, as well as prominent 
members of the intelligentsia. The Central Committee directed 
party activities between party congresses and met approximately 
three times a year. 

As in the Soviet Union, the Central Committee elected a Polit- 
buro and a Secretariat. The Politburo, which usually included key 
government ministers and Central Committee secretaries, was the 
main administrative and policy-making body and convened on a 
weekly basis. Generally the Central Committee approved Polit- 
buro reports and policy decisions with little debate. The Secretari- 
at was responsible for guiding the day-to-day affairs of the party, 
in particular for organizing the execution of Politburo decisions 
and for selecting party and government cadres. 

The Ninth Party Congress of the APL was convened in Novem- 
ber 1986, with 1,628 delegates in attendance. Since 1971, the com- 
position of the party had changed in several respects. The percentage 
of women had risen from 22 percent in 1971 to 32.2 percent in 
1986, while 70 percent of APL members were under the age of 
forty. The average age of members in the newly elected Central 
Committee was forty-nine, as compared with an average age of 
fifty-three in the previous Central Committee. The new Central 
Committee elected a Politburo of thirteen full and five candidate 
members. In his speech at the Ninth Party Congress, Alia did not 
indicate any significant departure from the policies of Hoxha, but 
he launched a campaign to streamline the party bureaucracy and 
improve its efficiency. Alia urged that standards of cadre training 
and performance be raised in an effort to rid the system of bu- 
reaucrats who were so concerned with protecting their privileges 
that they blocked the implementation of new economic policies. 
The Politburo also instituted a policy whereby cadres in positions 



176 




Speaker at the Tenth Party Congress of the Albanian Party of Labor, June 1991 

Courtesy Charles Sudetic 



that were vulnerable to graft and corruption would be rotated on 
a regular basis. 

At the Ninth Plenum of the Central Committee in January 1990, 
Alia announced further modest reforms. Meetings of all lower-level 
party organizations would be open to the masses, secretaries of party 
organizations could serve no longer than five years, one- third of 
the membership in state organs had to be renewed each legislative 
term, and at each congress of the APL a third of the delegates would 
be replaced. 

These reforms, however, appeared to be ineffectual after Alba- 
nia underwent radical changes in its political culture in 1990-91. 
As was the case in the Soviet Union and in other countries of Eastern 
Europe, attempts at cautious reform in response to unrest gave rise 
to widespread manifestations of discontent. On December 1 1 , 1990, 
student protests triggered the announcement at the Thirteenth Ple- 
num of the Central Committee of the APL that a multiparty sys- 
tem would be introduced in time for the general elections set for 
February 1 99 1 . Following the multiparty election in the spring of 
1991, the APL, later the SPA, emerged as the dominant partner 
in a coalition government (see Reform Politics, this ch.). The SPA 
was defeated in the spring 1992 general election, receiving only 
26 percent of the vote. 



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Albania: A Country Study 

The Government Apparatus 

The government apparatus, like that of the party, was in a tran- 
sitional, reformist phase in early 1992. Following the upheavals 
of 1990 and 1991, which left the economy shattered, much of the 
country's infrastructure damaged, and parts of the education and 
welfare systems inoperative, the regime was becoming more 
democratic and more responsive to the demands of the Albanian 
people. This shift was reflected, above all, in the introduction of 
a new electoral system, which for the first time allowed people to 
choose among several candidates in electing representatives to the 
legislature. The organs of government described here were provided 
for in the 1976 constitution. However, changes were introduced 
in April 1991, when the People's Assembly passed the Law on 
Major Constitutional Provisions (see Multiparty System, this ch.). 

People's Assembly 

The supreme organ of the state was, according to the 1976 con- 
stitution, the People's Assembly, a unicameral legislative body 
whose 250 members were elected for four years from a single list 
of approved candidates. All legislative power was vested in the as- 
sembly, which met twice a year for a few days. The People's As- 
sembly had the authority to appoint commissions, to carry out 
special functions, and to conduct investigations. Between sessions 
the fifteen-member Presidium of the People's Assembly took charge. 
Proposals for legislation could be made by the Presidium of the 
People's Assembly, the Council of Ministers, or members of the 
assembly itself. In order for a bill to become law, a majority of 
the People's Assembly had to affirm support for it. Rarely did the 
assembly express anything other than unanimous approval for a 
bill. The chairman of the Presidium of the People's Assembly was 
Alia, who thus merged the functions of party and government leader 
in one person. 

Council of Ministers and People's Councils 

The Council of Ministers, formally approved by the People's 
Assembly, served as the executive branch of the government, tak- 
ing charge of activities in the social, economic, and cultural spheres. 
The APL's Politburo actually chose the Council of Ministers, which 
in early 1991 consisted of twenty-one members. At the same time, 
some ministers were members of the Politburo, and all belonged 
to the APL. This fact enabled the party to exercise strong supervi- 
sion and direction over the Council of Ministers, and, indeed, the 
council's main function was to ensure that Politburo decisions were 



178 



Government and Politics 



carried out. The Council of Ministers was headed by a chairman, 
the de facto prime minister, who was chosen by the party leader- 
ship. In January 1982, Adil Qarcani succeeded Mehmet Shehu as 
prime minister and was, in turn, replaced by Fatos Nano in Febru- 
ary 1991. 

People's councils, elected for three-year terms, were responsi- 
ble for government at twenty-six district levels as well as regional 
and city levels. They maintained order, enforced laws, and were 
charged with protecting citizens' rights. The councils met twice 
a year for a few days, and between sessions their work was con- 
ducted by executive committees. 

Courts 

The highest judicial organ was the Supreme Court, whose mem- 
bers were elected to a four-year term by the People's Assembly 
in a secret ballot. The Supreme Court consisted of a chairman, 
deputy chairmen, and assistant judges and made its decisions col- 
legially. Officers of courts at the lower levels — district and regional 
courts — were elected in a similar manner by people's councils. Tri- 
als were generally open to the public and were often held in places 
of employment or in villages in order to make them accessible. 

After abolishing the Ministry of Justice in the 1960s, the Alba- 
nian leadership placed supervision of the country's legal and judi- 
cial system in the hands of the prosecutor general. Then in 1983, 
the Ministry of Justice's Office of Investigations, charged with in- 
vestigating criminal cases, was placed under the direct supervision 
of the Presidium of the People's Assembly, ostensibly to make the 
legal system more responsive to the needs of the people. Whatever 
organizational changes occurred, the courts themselves had little 
independence in practice because of party interference in both the 
investigative process and court proceedings. In 1990 the Ministry 
of Justice was reestablished, with a mandate for supervising the 
courts and coming up with a program of judicial reform. As of early 
1992, the creation of such a program was still underway. 

Mass Organizations 

According to Enver Hoxha, mass organizations were "levers of 
the party for its ties with the masses," and they carried out politi- 
cal, executive, and organizational work in such a way as to enable 
party directives to be correctly understood and implemented by 
the population at large. Because less than 4 percent of Albania's 
population belonged to the APL as of 1990, the leadership relied 
heavily on mass organizations to achieve political socialization. They 
were controlled by APL cadres and used public funds for their 



179 



Albania: A Country Study 

maintenance. However, by early 1992, the importance of these or- 
ganizations had diminished because a multiparty system had been 
established and members of the public had the democratic means 
through which to channel their political expressions. 

Democratic Front 

Among the most important of Albania's mass organizations was 
the Democratic Front, which in August 1945 succeeded the Na- 
tional Liberation Front (previously the National Liberation Move- 
ment) as the party's most important auxiliary. As the broadest mass 
organization, the Democratic Front was supposed to give expres- 
sion to the political views of the population and to carry out mass 
political education. The main tasks of this organization were to 
strengthen the political unity between the party and the people and 
to mobilize the masses in favor of the implementation of the APL's 
policies. Ideological indoctrination, the spreading of Marxist- 
Leninist ideas, was another goal of the front. The Democratic Front, 
as an umbrella organization for cultural, professional, and politi- 
cal groups, was open to all citizens who were at least eighteen years 
old. It was chaired until December 1990 by Hoxha's widow, Nexh- 
mije, herself a member of the APL Central Committee. 

Union of Albanian Working Youth 

Described officially as the "greatest revolutionary force of inex- 
haustible strength" and a "strong fighting reserve of the party," the 
Union of Albanian Working Youth was another key organization 
for political socialization and indoctrination. The union operated 
directly under the APL, with its local organs supervised by the rele- 
vant district or city party committees. Founded in 1941, the union 
was considered one of the most important auxiliaries of the party. 
Organized in the same way as the party, the union had city and 
district committees, and higher organs, including the Politburo and 
Central Committee. It was patterned after the Ail-Union Lenin 
Communist Youth League, known as Komsomol, in the Soviet 
Union. The more than 200,000 members of the union ranged in 
age from fifteen to twenty-five. The union was responsible for con- 
trolling all Pioneer organizations, which embraced children from 
seven to fourteen years of age; for implementing party directives 
among youth; and for mobilizing so-called volunteer labor brigades 
to work on special economic projects. Membership in the union 
was a prerequisite for those aspiring to a career in the party or state 
apparatus. 



180 



Government and Politics 

Union of Albanian Women 

The Union of Albanian Women was another important mass 
organization. The union was headed in 1990 by Lumturie Rexha, 
a member of the Central Committee of the APL. Its tasks includ- 
ed controlling and supervising the political and social activities of 
the country's women, handling their ideological training, and lead- 
ing the campaign for the emancipation of women. This campaign, 
initiated in 1966 by Hoxha, had considerable success in securing 
equal social and political rights for women. As part of the cam- 
paign, women from the cities were dispatched to rural regions to 
explain to the party's line on the role of women. By the late 1980s, 
women accounted for 47 percent of the labor force and about 30 
percent of deputies to the People's Assembly. Women held respon- 
sible jobs at all levels of government and received equal pay in most 
jobs. Nonetheless, Albanian society remained behind the West in 
its attitudes toward women and had a long way to go to achieve 
total equality for women (see Traditional Social Patterns and Val- 
ues, ch. 2; Women in the Work Force, ch. 3). 

United Trade Unions of Albania 

Founded in 1945, the United Trade Unions of Albania had tasks 
that were similar to those of the Democratic Front, but on a more 
limited scale. The organization's main goal was to carry out polit- 
ical and ideological education of the work force and to mobilize 
support for the implementation of the party line. The United Trade 
Unions of Albania consisted of three general unions: the Union 
of Workers of Industry and Construction, the Union of Education 
and Trade Workers, and the Union of Agriculture and Procure- 
ments Workers. The unions operated according to the principle 
that the interests of the workers and the state were one and the 
same. But toward the end of the 1980s, it became increasingly clear 
that workers no longer identified with the state. Growing disillu- 
sionment with social values was reflected in the significant increase 
in theft of socialist property, corruption, and violation of labor dis- 
cipline (see Trade Unions, ch. 3). 

Mass Media 

The mass media had long served as an important instrument 
for the government's efforts to revolutionize society along com- 
munist lines. One of the first acts of the communists when they 
came to power in 1944 was to seize control of the media, although 
formal nationalization of media operations did not occur until 1946. 



181 



Albania: A Country Study 



Thereafter the press, radio, and later television were used to justify 
communist rule and instil Marxist values in the population. 

The press, radio, and television were also used to mobilize the 
population to support and participate in the implementation of re- 
gime programs, such as economic plans, antireligious policies, or 
campaigns to promote literacy. In order to appeal to the sentiments 
of the masses, much of the media's message had a nationalist con- 
tent, evoking feelings of loyalty and pride associated with Albanian 
independence. The media also served to keep party and govern- 
ment officials in check through exposure of corruption and in- 
efficiency. 

The media were closely controlled by the party through the ex- 
ercise of vigorous censorship until 1990, when the leadership be- 
gan to moderate policies and to gradually allow for the expression 
of views that ran counter to the official line. Before 1990 all in- 
dividuals who worked in the mass media, whether editors, film 
directors, or television and radio producers, were subject to strict 
party discipline and rigid guidelines. 

The most important daily newspaper was Zeri i Popullit (Voice 
of the People), published by the party's Central Committee. As 
a result of the democratic changes that began in 1990, Zeri i Popul- 
lit lost its substantial circulation to the new, liberal papers that 
started to emerge. By 1991 several opposition papers had emerged, 
including the popular and outspoken Rilindja Demokratike. In 
response to the changing public mood, Zeri i Popullit dropped the 
hammer and sickle insignia from its masthead, along with the 
Marxist slogan "Proletarians of the World Unite." It then joined 
with opposition newspapers in the campaign to expose and de- 
nounce the corruption and privileges of the ruling elite. 

Reform Politics 

Albania held out against political reform longer than any other 
country that had been considered to be in the Soviet Union's sphere 
of influence, but significant indicators of change in the country's 
politics began to occur in 1989. Pressure for reform originated from 
several sources: the intelligentsia and university students, workers, 
Politburo members antagonistic to Alia, other East European coun- 
tries, and institutions such as the army and security police. Alia 
gradually responded to these pressures, but in general the reforms 
he initiated were too little too late. 

Initial Stages 

In 1990 Albania had the youngest population in Europe, with the 
average age at twenty-seven. Albanian youth had been discontented 



182 



Government and Politics 



and restless for some time before the regime began to make changes. 
Although efforts were made to keep Albania isolated from the rest 
of the world, television broadcasts from other European countries 
reached Albanian citizens, and the young could see "bourgeois" 
lifestyles and the political ferment that was occurring elsewhere in 
Eastern Europe. In addition, the working class was suffering the 
dire consequences of Albania's declining economy, and conditions 
were worsened by a terrible drought in 1989. In October 1989, 
workers and students in the southern district of Sarande staged pro- 
tests against the regime's policy of work incentives, and several 
protesters were arrested. A more serious protest had occurred in 
May 1989 at the Enver Hoxha University at Tirane. At first stu- 
dents were simply demanding better living conditions, but their 
grievances soon acquired a more political character and were treated 
as a distinct threat by the regime. Although the protest eventually 
ended without bloodshed, it caused the regime to reassess its policy 
toward young people and to consider such measures as improving 
living standards and educational facilities in order to ease the dis- 
content that had been building up among students (see Education 
under Communist Rule, ch. 2). 

Alia and his colleagues dismissed the Soviet Union's concepts 
of glasnost' (see Glossary) and perestroika (see Glossary) as irrelevant 
to the Albanian experience. Demonstrating his ideological purity, 
Alia claimed that communism collapsed in Eastern Europe because 
these states deviated from orthodox Marxism. At the Ninth Ple- 
num of the party's Central Committee in January 1990, however, 
Alia announced some modest political reforms (see Albania's Com- 
munist Party, this ch.). In addition, he presented limited economic 
reforms that called for some management authority at state farm 
and enterprise levels and for improvements in wage and price regu- 
lations to increase the role of material incentives. 

In general, Alia's reforms suggested that the party leadership 
was nervous and defensive, and Alia seemed anxious to convince 
the Central Committee that Albania should not follow the path of 
other East European countries. Albanian leaders seemed to fear 
that anything but very limited reform could lead to the social and 
political upheaval that had occurred elsewhere in Eastern Europe. 
But Alia's half-measures did little to improve the economic situa- 
tion or to halt the growing discontent with his regime. 

Some Albanian intellectuals, such as the sociologist Hamit Beqeja 
and the writer Ismail Kadare, recommended more radical changes, 
particularly with regard to democracy and freedom of the press. 
As their demands grew, these intellectuals increasingly clashed with 
the conservatives in the party and state bureaucracy. In October 



183 



Albania: A Country Study 

1990, it was announced that Kadare, Albania's most prominent 
writer, had defected to France. The defection dealt a blow to Al- 
bania's image both at home and abroad, especially since the writer 
had sent a letter to Alia explaining that he had defected because 
he was disillusioned with the slow pace of democratic change in 
the country. The official reaction to Kadare 's defection was to con- 
demn it as a "grave offense against the patriotic and civil con- 
science" of Albania, but his work continued to be published within 
the country. 

Human Rights 

Albanian citizens had few of the guarantees of human rights and 
fundamental freedoms that have become standard in Western 
democracies. A large and very effective security service, whose name 
was changed in July 1991 from the directorate of State Security 
(Drejtorija e Sigurimit te Shtetit — Sigurimi) to the National In- 
formation Service (NIS), helped to support the rule of the com- 
munist party by means of consistently violating citizens' rights and 
freedoms. According to Amnesty International, political prisoners 
were tortured and beaten by the Sigurimi during investigations, 
and political detainees lacked adequate legal safeguards during 
pretrial investigations. Most investigations into political offenses 
lasted for several months. Such violations were described in Ka- 
dare 's literary works. 

Alia's regime took an important step toward democracy in ear- 
ly May 1990, when it announced its desire to join the Conference 
on Security and Cooperation in Europe (CSCE — see Glossary), 
while at the same time introducing positive changes in its legal sys- 
tem. A prerequisite for membership in the CSCE is the protection 
of human rights. The United Nations Human Rights Committee 
had severely criticized Albania for its human rights abuses in 1989, 
and in May 1990 the secretary general of the United Nations (UN) 
visited Albania and discussed the issue of human rights. The results 
of these efforts were mixed, but in general the leadership became 
more tolerant of political dissent. 

Deputy Prime Minister Manush Myftiu announced in 1991 a 
long list of legislative changes that were designed to improve Al- 
bania's human rights record. Among the reforms were the right 
to a speedy trial, legal defense, and appeal; the reduction of the 
number of crimes punishable by death; the right of all nationals 
to obtain passports for travel abroad; and the removal of loopholes 
in the definition of crimes against the state. The government also 
eased its persecution of religious practice and even allowed some 
religious activity and "religious propaganda" (see Religion, ch. 



184 



Government and Politics 



2). Restrictions on travel were liberalized, and the number of pass- 
ports issued was increased significantly. In addition, foreign broad- 
casts, including those from Voice of America, were no longer 
jammed. 

Further Moves Toward Democracy 

The communist regime faced perhaps its most severe test in early 
July 1990, when a demonstration by a group of young people in 
Tirane, the nation's capital, led about 5,000 to seek refuge in for- 
eign embassies. To defuse the crisis, in July 1990 the Central Com- 
mittee held a plenum, which resulted in significant changes in the 
leadership of party and state. The conservatives in the leadership 
were pushed out, and Alia's position was strengthened. Alia had 
already called for privatizing retail trade, and many businesses had 
begun to operate privately. Then in late July, the Politburo passed 
a law stating that collective-farm members should be given larger 
plots of land to farm individually (see Land Distribution and 
Agricultural Organization, ch. 3). 

In a September 1990 speech to representatives of Albania's major 
social and political organizations, Alia discussed the July crisis and 
called for electoral reform. He noted that a proposed electoral law 
would allow all voting to take place by secret ballot and that every 
precinct would have at least two candidates. The electors them- 
selves would have the right to propose candidates and anyone could 
nominate candidates for the assembly. Alia also criticized the 
bureaucratic "routine and tranquility" of managers and state or- 
ganizations that were standing in the way of reform. 

Despite Alia's efforts to proceed with change on a limited, cau- 
tious basis, reform from above threatened to turn into reform from 
below, largely because of the increasingly vocal demands of Alba- 
nia's youth. On December 9, 1990, student demonstrators marched 
from the Enver Hoxha University at Tirane though the streets of 
the capital shouting slogans and demanding an end to dictatorship. 
By December 1 1 , the number of participants had reached almost 
3,000. In an effort to quell the student unrest, which had led to 
clashes with riot police, Alia met with the students and agreed to 
take further steps toward democratization. The students informed 
Alia that they wanted to create an independent political organiza- 
tion of students and youth. Alia's response was that such an or- 
ganization had to be registered with the Ministry of Justice. 

The student unrest was a direct consequence of the radical trans- 
formations that were taking place in Eastern Europe and of Alia's 
own democratic reforms, which spurred the students on to make 



185 



Albania: A Country Study 

more politicized demands. Their protests triggered the announce- 
ment on December 11, 1990, at the Thirteenth Plenum of the APL 
Central Committee, that a multiparty system would be introduced 
in time for the general elections that were set for February 1991. 
The day after the announcement, the country's first opposition 
party, the Albanian Democratic Party (ADP), was formed. 

The Thirteenth Plenum of the APL Central Committee also an- 
nounced an extensive shakeup in the party leadership. Five of the 
eleven full members of the Politburo and two alternate members 
were replaced. Among those dismissed was Foto Cami, the lead- 
ing liberal ideologist in the APL leadership. C ami's ouster came 
as a surprise because he was on close terms with Alia, but appar- 
ently Alia was dissatisfied with his failure to deal with the intellec- 
tuals effectively. 

The student unrest that began in Tirane gave rise to widespread 
riots in four of the largest cities in northern Albania. Violent clashes 
between demonstrators and security forces took place, resulting in 
extensive property damage but, surprisingly, no fatalities. Appar- 
ently Alia had given the police strict orders to restrain themselves 
during confrontations with demonstrators. However, Alia issued 
stern public warnings to the protesters on television, claiming that 
they had been misled by foreign influences and opportunistic in- 
tellectuals. 

The crisis was analyzed in the Albanian press in an usually can- 
did manner. On December 17, the Democratic Front's daily 
newspaper, Bashkimi, described what had occurred and then warned 
that such violence could lead to a conservative backlash, suggest- 
ing that conservative forces posed a real threat to the process of 
democratization in the country. The outspoken nature of the arti- 
cle, the first instance of open criticism of the security agencies, in- 
dicated that the government was prepared to allow intellectuals and 
reformers to express their views in the media. Later that month, 
the Council of Ministers set up a state commission to draft a law 
on the media and formally define their rights, thus reducing the 
APL's direct control over the press. The council also authorized 
the first opposition newspaper, Rilindja Demokratike. 

Another important sign of democratization was the publication 
on December 3 1 of a draft interim constitution intended to replace 
the constitution of 1976. The draft completely omitted mention of 
the APL. It introduced a system with features similar to those of 
a parliamentary democracy, while at the same time strengthening 
the role of the president, who would be elected by a new People's 
Assembly. The president was to assume the duties of commander 
in chief of the armed forces and chairman of the Defense Council, 



186 



Government and Politics 



positions previously held by the party first secretary. Also on De- 
cember 3 1 , the government eased restrictions on private trade in 
the service and light industry sectors, indicating a general trend 
toward a less centralized economy. 

In his traditional New Year's message to the Albanian people, 
Alia welcomed the changes that had been occurring in the country 
and claimed that 1991 would be a turning point in terms of the 
economy. But despite positive signs of change, many Albanians 
were still trying to leave their country. At the end of 1990, as many 
as 5,000 Albanians crossed over the mountainous border into 
Greece. Young people motivated by economic dissatisfaction made 
up the bulk of the refugees. 

Multiparty System 

Alia and his political colleagues did not respond to demands by 
reformers for a multiparty system until the pressure became too 
great to resist. After the government was finally forced to introduce 
political pluralism and a multiparty system, several opposition par- 
ties were created. The first was the Albanian Democratic Party 
(ADP), formed on December 12, 1990. One of the founders of the 
party was the thirty-five-year-old Gramoz Pashko, an economist 
and a former APL member and son of a former government offi- 
cial. The party's platform called for the protection of human rights, 
a free-market economy, and good relations with neighboring coun- 
tries. At the end of 1990, the ADP started organizing rallies in var- 
ious cities intended to help people overcome their fear of expressing 
political views after decades of authoritarian control. Thousands 
of people attended the rallies. The ADP supported the rights of 
the large Albanian population in Kosovo, a province in the Serbi- 
an Republic of Yugoslavia, and advocated a reduction of the length 
of military service. 

By early February 1991, the ADP had an estimated member- 
ship of 50,000 and was recognized as an important political force 
both at home and abroad. The ADP was led by a commission of 
six men, the most prominent of whom were Sali Berisha, a cardi- 
ologist, and Pashko. Berisha, a strong nationalist, vigorously 
defended the rights of the Albanian residents of Kosovo, and Pashko 
was an outspoken advocate of economic reform. The party's 
newspaper, Rilindja Demokratike, was outspoken in its political com- 
mentary. Its first issue, which appeared on January 5, 1991, criti- 
cized the government very aggressively. 

The second main opposition party, the Republican Party, headed 
by Sabri Godo, was founded in January 1991. The Republican 
Party, which soon had branches in all districts of the country, 



187 



Albania: A Country Study 



advocated a more gradual approach to reform than that espoused 
by the ADP. Several other opposition parties with reform platforms 
were formed; they included the Agrarian Party, the Ecology Party, 
the National Unity Party, and the Social Democratic Party. 

Albania held its first multiparty elections since the 1920s in 1991 . 
The elections were for the 250 seats in the unicameral People's As- 
sembly. The first round was held in February, and runoff elec- 
tions took place on March 31 ; a final round was held in April. Staff 
members of the CSCE observed the voting and counting of bal- 
lots. They found that the process was orderly, although some com- 
plaints of irregularities were reported. The turnout was an extremely 
high 98.9 percent. The APL emerged as the clear victor, winning 
some two-thirds of the seats. The margin enabled it to maintain 
control of the government and choose a president, Ramiz Alia, 
who had previously been chairman of the Presidium of the earlier 
People's Assembly. 

The ADP captured 30 percent of the seats in the People's As- 
sembly, as opposed to 67.6 percent acquired by the APL. Although 
the APL bore the burden of being the party responsible for past 
repression and the severe economic woes of Albania, it nonethe- 
less represented stability amidst chaos to many people. This fact 
was particularly true in the countryside, where the conservative 
peasantry showed little inclination for substantial changes in their 
way of life. Another advantage for the APL was its control of most 
of the media, particularly the broadcast media, to which the op- 
position parties had little access. It was therefore able to manipu- 
late radio and television to its advantage. 

Although many conservative leaders won election to the Peo- 
ple's Assembly, Alia lost his seat. Alia had surprised many people 
by adopting a new, apparently pragmatic, approach to politics in 
the months leading up to the election. He had faced a serious 
challenge in mid-February, when unrest erupted again among stu- 
dents at the Enver Hoxha University at Tirane. Approximately 
700 students went on a hunger strike in support of a demand that 
Hoxha' s name should be removed from the university's official 
name. The demand was a serious attack on the country's political 
heritage and one that Alia refused to countenance. He resisted stu- 
dent demands and stressed the necessity of preserving law and order, 
thereby antagonizing those who had expected him to be more 
moderate. 

In April 1991 , Albania's new multiparty legislature passed tran- 
sitional legislation to enable the country to move ahead with key 
political and economic reforms. The legislation, the Law on Major 
Constitutional Provisions, was in effect an interim constitution, 



188 



Government and Politics 



and the 1976 constitution was invalidated. The words "socialist" 
and "people's" were dropped from the official title of Albania, so 
that the country's name became the Republic of Albania. There 
were also fundamental changes to the political order. The Repub- 
lic of Albania was declared to be a parliamentary state providing 
full rights and freedoms to its citizens and observing separation 
of powers. The People's Assembly of at least 140 members elected 
for a four-year term is the legislature and is headed by a presiden- 
cy consisting of a chairman and two deputies. The People's As- 
sembly elects the president of Albania by secret ballot and also elects 
the members of the Supreme Court. The president is elected for 
five years and may not serve more than two consecutive terms or 
fill any other post concurrently. The president does, however, ex- 
ercise the duties of the People's Assembly when that body is not 
in session. The Council of Ministers is the top executive body, and 
its membership is described in the interim constitution. The law 
on Major Constitutional Provisions is to operate as Albania's basic 
law until adoption of a new constitution, to be drafted by a com- 
mission appointed by the People's Assembly. 

Although he lost his seat in the legislature, the People's Assem- 
bly elected Alia president. The constitutional changes of April 1991 
made it obligatory that Alia resign from all of his high-level posts 
in the APL in order to accept this post, and the amendments 
depoliticized other branches of government, including the minis- 
tries of defense, foreign affairs, and public order. The People's As- 
sembly also gained regulation of the radio, television, and other 
official news media. 

The Coalition Government of 1991 

Prime Minister Fatos Nano, a moderate communist, did well in 
the spring 1991 elections, and he was able to set up a new govern- 
ment to replace the provisional administration that he established 
in February 1991 . His postelection cabinet consisted mostly of new 
faces and called for radical market reforms in the economy. In out- 
lining his economic program to the People's Assembly, Nano present- 
ed an extremely bleak picture of the economy. He said that the 
economy was in dire straits because of the inefficiencies of the highly 
centralized economic system that had existed up to that point, and 
he advocated extensive privatization as a remedy. He also announced 
government plans to reform and streamline the armed forces. 

Nano's twenty-five-member cabinet and his progressive economic 
and political program were approved in early May 1991. But the 
outlook for his administration was clouded by the fact that a general 
strike had almost completely paralyzed the country and its economy. 



189 



Albania: A Country Study 

Indeed, the situation became so dire that Nano was ousted and a 
"government of national salvation" was created, in which the com- 
munists were forced to share power with other parties in the execu- 
tive branch for the first time since the end of World War II. The 
new government, led by Prime Minister Ylli Bufi, was a coalition of 
the communists, the ADP, the Republican Party, the Social Demo- 
cratic party, and the Agrarian Party. It took office in June 1991. 

Just days later, also in June 1991, the Tenth Party Congress of 
the APL took place in Tirane. Delegates voted to change the name 
of the party to the Socialist Party of Albania (SPA) and elected 
a reformist leadership under Nano. Former Politburo member 
Xhelil Gjoni gave the keynote address to the congress. He openly 
attacked the late dictator, Hoxha, and even went so far as to criti- 
cize Alia. His speech was a milestone for the Albanian communists 
and signified the end of the Stalinist line pursued by the party un- 
til that time. The new program adopted by the party stressed the 
goal of making a transition to a modern, democratic socialist party. 

Alia also gave a speech at the party congress, in which he, too, 
sanctioned a significant reform of the party. But it appeared as 
though he were under a political shadow. By July 1991, he had 
come under severe attack from various political quarters. Serious 
and highly damaging allegations were made by several of Alia's 
former associates. One detractor charged that Alia had given orders 
for police to fire on unarmed demonstrators in February 1991 , and 
others openly questioned his claims to have started the process of 
democratization in Albania. The campaign against Alia was ap- 
parently designed to discredit him and force him to step down. 

In response, Alia made a great effort to portray himself as a real 
reformist. In early August 1991, he addressed the nation on tele- 
vision to talk about the attempted coup in the Soviet Union. He 
said that Mikhail S. Gorbachev's ouster only encouraged all kinds 
of dictators and he deplored the actions of the self-declared Soviet 
State Committee for the State of Emergency. The subsequent defeat 
of the Soviet coup was described by Alia and others as a victory 
for the forces of reform. 

An earlier sign that the government was making an attempt to 
break with the nondemocratic traditions of the past was the an- 
nouncement in early July that the notorious Sigurimi, the Albani- 
an secret police, had been dissolved and replaced by a reformed 
security organization (see Security Forces, ch. 5). The new insti- 
tution, the National Information Service (NIS), was to be far more 
attentive to individual rights than its predecessor had been. The 
move to disband the Sigurimi and form the NIS coincided with 
a steep rise in crime and a wave of Albanians fleeing to Italy, an 



190 



* f 

1 / 



Tfttf forced return of Albanian refuge-seekers from Italy at the 

port of Durr'es, June 1991 
Courtesy Charles Sudetic 

exodus that the NIS was unable to stem. The refugee problem 
reached epidemic proportions in August 1991, with 15,000 Alba- 
nians seeking asylum in Italy; most were later returned to Albania. 

In many respects, Alia was a political survivor. He had managed 
to remain a key political figure throughout several political crises. 
Although he had some genuine concerns for stability and continuity, 
he was not inflexible. He changed in response to the circumstances 
and accommodated the demands of the reformers. Nonetheless, 
with Albania in the throes of a grave economic crisis, Alia had to 
face challenges that he could not surmount. After the collapse of 
the coalition government in December 1991 and the ADP's land- 
slide victory in the spring 1992 general election, he resigned as presi- 
dent on April 3, 1992. On April 9, the People's Assembly elected 
ADP leader Sali Berisha as Albania's new head of state. 

Foreign Policy 

Historically, Albania's foreign policy objectives have not been 
far-reaching. Ideology has not been a driving force in determining 
Albania's relations with the outside world. Rather, its main con- 
cern has been to preserve its territorial integrity and independence. 
The strategy pursued by Enver Hoxha was to rely on alliances with 



191 



Albania: A Country Study 



communist states that could give Albania large amounts of foreign 
aid and at the same support his regime. His successor, Alia, modi- 
fied this strategy by pursuing a more varied foreign policy, reaching 
out to a number of Albania's neighbors. 

Shifting Alliances 

Several factors contributed to Albania's foreign policy, but na- 
tionalism was probably the single most important factor. Albanian 
nationalism had developed over years of domination or threat of 
domination by its more powerful neighbors: Greece, Italy, and Yu- 
goslavia. The partition of Albania in 1912, when Kosovo and other 
Albanian-inhabited territories were lost, left the country with a deep 
sense of resentment and hostility to outsiders. Traditional fears of 
being dismembered or subjugated by foreigners persisted after 
World War II and were aggravated by Hoxha's paranoia about 
external enemies. 

To offset the influence of Yugoslavia, Hoxha made an effort to 
improve relations with the Western powers, but was largely unsuc- 
cessful. Following the 1946 purge of Sejfulla Maleshova, the leader 
of the party faction that advocated moderation in foreign and 
domestic policy, Albania's relations with the West deteriorated, 
and both the United States and Britain withdrew their foreign 
envoys from Tirane. Albania's application to join the UN was also 
rejected (Albania did join the UN in December 1955). Hoxha made 
peace with Josip Broz Tito, Yugoslavia's president, and in July 
1946 signed the Treaty of Friendship, Cooperation, and Mutual 
Aid with Yugoslavia. Yugoslav influence over Albania's party and 
government increased considerably between 1945 and 1948. Yugo- 
slavia came to dominate political, economic, military, and cultural 
life in Albania, and plans were even made to merge the two 
countries. 

Yugoslavia's expulsion from the Cominform (see Glossary) in 
1948 gave Hoxha an opportunity to reverse this situation, mak- 
ing his country the first in Eastern Europe to condemn Yugo- 
slavia. The treaty of friendship with Yugoslavia was abrogated; 
Yugoslav advisers were forced out of Albania; and Xoxe, the 
minister of internal affairs and head of the secret police, was tried 
and executed, along with hundreds of other "Titoists. " As a result 
of these changes, Albania became a full-fledged member of the 
Soviet sphere of influence, playing a key role in Stalin's strategy 
of isolating Yugoslavia. In 1949 Albania joined the Council for 
Mutual Economic Assistance (Comecon — see Glossary) and 
proceeded with a program of rapid, Soviet-style, centralized eco- 
nomic development. 



192 



Government and Politics 



Tirane's close relations with Moscow lasted until 1955, when 
the post-Stalin leadership began pursuing a policy of rapproche- 
ment with Yugoslavia. As part of the de-Stalinization process, 
Moscow began to pressure Tirane to moderate its belligerent atti- 
tude toward Yugoslavia and relax its internal policies. Hoxha 
managed to withstand this challenge and to resist the pressure to 
de-Stalinize, despite the fact that the Soviet Union resorted to pu- 
nitive economic measures that caused Albania considerable hard- 
ship. In 1960 the Soviets attempted to engineer a coup against 
Hoxha, but were unsuccessful because Hoxha had learned of their 
plans in advance and had purged all pro-Soviet elements in the 
party and government. 

By 1 960 Albania was already looking elsewhere for political sup- 
port and improving its relations with China. In December 1961, 
the Soviet Union, while embroiled in a deep rift with China, broke 
diplomatic relations with Albania, and other East European coun- 
tries sharply curtailed their contacts with Albania as well. Through- 
out the 1960s, Albania and China, countries that shared a common 
bond of alienation from the Soviet Union, responded by maintain- 
ing very close domestic and foreign ties. China gave Albania a great 
deal of economic aid and assistance, while the latter acted as Chi- 
na's representative at international forums from which the Chinese 
were excluded. Although Tirane's break with Moscow had been 
very costly in economic terms, Albania made no effort to reestab- 
lish ties with the Soviet Union. In an address to the Fifth Con- 
gress of the APL in November 1966, Hoxha made it clear that 
Albania intended to stay close to China. 

The 1968 Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia, however, marked 
the beginning of a gradual estrangement between Albania and Chi- 
na, primarily because Hoxha realized that an increased Soviet mili- 
tary threat could not be offset by an alliance with a country that 
was far away and militarily weak relative to the superpowers. Hoxha 
sanctioned a cautious opening toward neighboring countries such 
as Yugoslavia and Greece, although he continued to be concerned 
about the domestic effects of moving too far from foreign policy 
that excluded all countries except China. 

Another cause of the estrangement was the realization that 
Chinese aid was not enough to prevent Albania from having serious 
economic problems. Albania's experience with financial assistance 
from communist powers from 1945 to 1978 had begun to make 
it wary of becoming so dependent on any outside entity. A chill 
in relations with China began to occur following the death of Mao 
Zedong in September 1976, and in July 1978 China terminated 



193 



Albania: A Country Study 

all economic and military aid to Albania, an action that left Alba- 
nia without a foreign protector. 

In the late 1970s, Albania embarked on a policy of rigid self- 
reliance. Having broken ties with the two leading communist states, 
Albania aspired to total economic independence and declared it- 
self the only genuine Marxist-Leninist country in the world. The 
government was actually forbidden to seek foreign aid and credits 
or to encourage foreign investment in the country. Hoxha rigidly 
adhered to Marxism-Leninism, seeing the world as divided into 
two opposing systems — socialism and capitalism. But he also led 
Albania in a two-front struggle against both United States ''im- 
perialism" and Soviet "social-imperialism." For example, Alba- 
nia refused to participate in CSC E talks or sign the Helsinki Accords 
(see Glossary) in 1975 because the United States and the Soviet 
Union had initiated the negotiating process. 

Changes in the 1980s 

Hoxha had basically used the threat of external enemies to justify 
a repressive internal policy. His primary goal was to stay in pow- 
er, and an isolationist foreign policy suited this goal. But some mem- 
bers of the APL leadership began to question the efficacy of such 
a policy, particularly in view of its adverse economic consequences. 
At the end of the 1970s, Hoxha was pressured into sanctioning a 
cautious effort to strengthen bilateral relations with Albania's neigh- 
bors, in particular Yugoslavia. Bilateral cultural contacts between 
the two countries increased, and by 1980 Yugoslavia had replaced 
China as Albania's main trading partner. In the early 1980s, 
however, Yugoslavia's military suppression of ethnic Albanians 
demonstrating in the province of Kosovo led to a chill in Albanian- 
Yugoslav relations. Approximately two million ethnic Albanians 
lived in Kosovo, and Albania supported Kosovo's demands that 
it be granted the status of a republic. Yugoslavia responded by ac- 
cusing Albania of interfering in its internal affairs, and cultural 
and economic contacts were severely reduced. Trade between the 
two countries stagnated. 

In the early 1980s, a diplomatic shift toward Italy, Greece, and 
Turkey occurred. In November 1984, Alia, as Hoxha' s heir ap- 
parent, gave a speech in which he expressed an interest in expanding 
relations with West European countries. He noted that "Albania 
is a European country and as such it is vitally interested in what 
is occurring on that continent." Relations with Italy and Greece 
became noticeably stronger in the early and mid-1980s. In 1983 
Albania signed an agreement with Italy on establishing a maritime 
link between the ports of Durres and Trieste. The two countries 



194 



Government and Politics 



also ratified a long-term trade agreement, whereby Albania would 
send Italy raw materials in exchange for industrial technology. Al- 
bania entered into a long-term economic accord with Greece in 
December 1984, and the two countries also signed a series of agree- 
ments on road transportation, cultural exchanges, scientific and 
technological cooperation, telecommunications, and postal services. 
Albania's closer relations with Italy and Greece caused Yugosla- 
via concern, primarily because it appeared preferable to Belgrade 
to have Albania isolated. But Albania worried that West European 
countries would allow Yugoslavia to dictate its policies if it failed 
to develop strong relations with other countries in the region. 

Alia's Pragmatism 

On succeeding to Hoxha's party leadership post in 1985, Alia 
reassessed Albania's foreign policy. He realized that it was imper- 
ative for Albania to expand its contacts with the outside world if 
it were to improve its economic situation. He was eager in particu- 
lar to introduce Western technology, although limited foreign- 
currency reserves and constitutional bans on foreign loans and 
credits restricted Albania's ability to import technology. 

Alia's public statements indicated that in pursuing his country's 
foreign policy objectives he would be less rigid than his predeces- 
sor and put political and economic concerns ahead of ideological 
ones. Thus, at the seventy-fifth anniversary of Albania's indepen- 
dence in 1987, Alia stated, "We do not hesitate to cooperate with 
others and we do not fear their power and wealth. On the con- 
trary, we seek such cooperation because we consider it a factor that 
will contribute to our internal development." 

In February 1988, Albania participated in the Balkan Foreign 
Ministers Conference, held in Belgrade. The participation was a 
clear sign of a new flexibility in Albania's foreign policy. During 
the 1960s and 1970s, Albania had refused all regional attempts to 
engage in multilateral cooperation, but Alia was determined to end 
Albania's isolation and return his country to the mainstream of 
world politics. This new approach entailed an improvement of re- 
lations with Yugoslavia. Indeed, Alia apparently realized that Al- 
bania had nothing to gain from confrontation with Yugoslavia over 
the Kosovo issue, and he ceased endorsing Kosovar demands for 
republic status in his public statements. The government's con- 
ciliatory approach to Yugoslavia was expressed fully in a declara- 
tion by Minister of Foreign Affairs Reis Malile at the conference. 
Malile said that the status of Kosovo was an internal Yugoslav 
problem. 



195 



Albania: A Country Study 

Trade and economic cooperation between Albania and Yugo- 
slavia increased greatly toward the end of the 1980s. But Kosovo 
again became a source of tension when the Yugoslav government 
imposed special security measures on the province and dispatched 
army and militia units in February and March 1989. These ac- 
tions resulted in violent clashes between Yugoslav security forces 
and the Albanian inhabitants of Kosovo. Albania denounced Yu- 
goslavia's 4 'chauvinist policy" toward Kosovo and noted that if 
the oppression continued, it would adversely affect relations be- 
tween Albania and Yugoslavia. For its part, Yugoslavia threatened 
to close down Albania's only rail link to the outside world, a move 
that would have caused great hardship to Albania. In December 
1989, a Yugoslav newspaper reported alleged unrest in northern 
Albania; President Alia denounced this report and similar ones as 
a foreign * 'campaign of slander" against Albania. He denied reports 
of unrest and said that Yugoslavia was trying to stir up trouble 
to divert attention from ethnic troubles in Kosovo. 

By the late 1980s, Albania began to strengthen further its rela- 
tions with Greece. The substantial Greek minority in Albania moti- 
vated Greek concern for better communications with Albania (see 
Ethnicity, ch. 2). It was especially important for Greece that Al- 
banian nationals who were ethnically Greek should be allowed to 
practice the Greek Orthodox religion. Greece offered Albania hopes 
of economic and political ties that would offset the deterioration 
in relations with Yugoslavia. Albania and Greece had already signed 
a military protocol on the maintenance and repair of border mark- 
ers in July 1985. In August 1987, Greece officially lifted its state 
of war with Albania, which had existed since World War II, when 
Italy had launched its attack on Greece from Albanian territory. 
In November 1987, the Greek prime minister visited Tirane to sign 
a series of agreements with Albania, including a long-term agree- 
ment on economic, industrial, technical, and scientific coopera- 
tion. In April 1988, the two countries set up a ferry link between 
the Greek island of Corfu and the Albanian city of Sarande. In 
late 1989, however, their relations began to worsen when some 
Greek politicians began to express concern about the fate of the 
Greek minority in Albania, and a war of words began. This hostility 
marked a sharp departure from the trend over the previous decade. 

Albania's relations with both Turkey and Italy improved after 
the death of Hoxha. In May 1985, Prime Minister Qarcani sent 
a message to the Italian prime minister, Bettino Craxi, stating that 
he hoped cooperation between the two countries could be increased. 
In late 1985, however, there was a slight setback in Italian- Albanian 
relations when six Albanian citizens sought refuge in the Italian 



196 



Government and Politics 



Embassy in Tirane and the two countries found it difficult to set- 
tle the dilemma. The six were allowed to remain in the embassy 
until Albania finally gave assurances that they would not be per- 
secuted. 

An important step toward ending Albania's isolation and im- 
proving its relationships with its neighbors was Tirane 's offer to 
host the Balkan Foreign Ministers Conference in October 1990. 
The conference was a follow-up to the Belgrade conference of 1 988 
and was the first international political gathering to take place in 
Albania since the communists came to power. The conference came 
at a good time for the Albanian leadership, which was attempting 
to project a new image abroad in keeping with the democratic 
changes beginning to take place within the country. For Albania 
it was an opportunity to increase its prestige and boost its interna- 
tional image in the hopes of becoming a full-fledged member of 
the CSCE. In fact, the latter aim was not achieved by the confer- 
ence, and it was not until June 1991, after a visit by CSCE staff 
members to observe Albania's first multiparty elections, that Al- 
bania was accepted as a full member of the CSCE. 

Albania Seeks New Allies 

By the mid-1980s, Alia recognized that in order to ameliorate 
Albania's serious economic problems, trade with the West had to 
be significandy expanded. The Federal Republic of Germany (West 
Germany) was on the top of the list of potential economic part- 
ners. In 1987 Albania established diplomatic relations with West 
Germany, after first dropping claims for war reparations. Albania 
hoped to obtain advanced technology from West Germany, along 
with assistance in improving its agricultural sector and moderniz- 
ing its transportation system. In November 1987, Albania signed 
an agreement with West Germany, which enabled it to purchase 
West German goods at below market prices; and in March 1989, 
West Germany granted Albania 20 million deutsche marks in non- 
repayable funds for development projects. 

Albania initiated discussions with many private Western firms 
concerning the acquisition of advanced technology and purchase 
of modern industrial plants. It also asked for technical assistance 
in locating and exploiting oil deposits off its coast. But the problems 
for Albania in pursuing these economic aims were considerable. 
The main problem was Albania's critical shortage of foreign cur- 
rency, a factor that caused Albania to resort to barter to pay for 
imported goods. Tied to this problem was the economy's central- 
ized planning mechanism, which inhibited the production of ex- 
port commodities because enterprises had no incentive to increase 



197 



Albania: A Country Study 

the country's foreign-exchange earnings. An even greater problem 
until the 1990s was the provision in the 1976 Albanian constitu- 
tion prohibiting the government from accepting foreign aid. 

In addition to paying more attention to Albania's close neigh- 
bors and Western Europe, Alia advocated a reassessment of rela- 
tions with other East European countries. A more flexible attitude 
was adopted, and relations with the German Democratic Repub- 
lic (East Germany), Czechoslovakia, and Bulgaria significantly im- 
proved in the late 1980s. In June 1989, the East German foreign 
minister Oskar Fischer visited Albania; he was the first senior official 
from the Soviet bloc to visit the country since the early 1960s. Alia 
personally received Fischer, and a number of key agreements were 
signed that led to expanded cooperation in industry and the train- 
ing of specialists. By 1990 long-term trade agreements had been 
signed with most East European states. The Comecon countries 
were willing to accept Albania's shoddy manufactured goods and 
its low-quality produce for political reasons. After 1990, however, 
when these countries were converting to market economies, they 
no longer had the same willingness, which made it considerably 
more difficult for Albania to obtain much-needed foreign curren- 
cy. The Albanian media, nonetheless, greeted the revolutions in 
Eastern Europe with favor, covering events with an unusual amount 
of objectivity. The government in Tirane was among the first to 
attack Romanian dictator Nicolae Ceau§escu and to recognize the 
new government in Romania. As far as the Soviet Union was con- 
cerned, however, Albania continued to be highly critical of its form- 
er ally and denounced Gorbachev's policy of perestroika. Apparently 
Albania was also concerned about what it saw as Soviet support 
for Yugoslavia's handling of the Kosovo issue. Nevertheless, the 
Soviet Union continued to call for improved relations with Albania. 

Albania's attitude toward the United States traditionally had been 
very hostile. Relations with Washington were broken in 1946, when 
Albania's communist regime refused to adhere to prewar treaties 
and obligations. Alia showed a different inclination, however, af- 
ter a visit to Tirane in 1989 by some prominent Albanian Ameri- 
cans, who impressed him with their desire to promote the Albanian 
cause. In mid-February 1990, the Albanian government reversed 
its long-standing policy of having no relations with the superpow- 
ers. A leading Albanian government official announced: "We will 
have relations with any state that responds to our friendship with 
friendship." No formal contacts between the United States and 
Albania existed until 1990, when diplomats began a series of meet- 
ings that led to a resumption of relations. On March 15, 1991, 
a memorandum of understanding was signed in Washington 



198 



Statue of Stalin in 
storage in Tirarie 
Courtesy Fred Conrad 




reestablishing diplomatic relations between the two countries. Unit- 
ed States secretary of state James Baker visited Albania in June 
1991 , following the CSCE meeting in Berlin at which Albania was 
granted CSCE membership. During his visit, Baker informed the 
Albanian government that the United States was prepared to pro- 
vide Albania with approximately US$6 million worth of assistance. 
He announced that the United States welcomed the democratic 
changes that were taking place in Albania and promised that if Al- 
bania took concrete steps toward political and free-market reforms, 
the United States would be prepared to offer further assistance. 

Alia's pragmatism was also reflected in Albania's policy toward 
China and the Soviet Union. The Albanian Deputy Minister of 
Foreign Affairs made an official visit to China in March 1989, and 
the visit was reciprocated in August 1990. On July 30, 1990, Al- 
bania and the Soviet Union signed a protocol normalizing rela- 
tions, which had been suspended for the previous twenty- nine years. 
The Soviet- Albanian Friendship Society was reactivated, and Alia 
met with the Soviet foreign minister, Eduard Shevardnadze, when 
they were both in New York to visit the United Nations in Sep- 
tember 1990. No longer were the United States and the Soviet 
Union considered to be Albania's most dangerous enemies. 

Alia's trip to the UN was the first time that an Albanian head 
of state had attended an official meeting in the West. The purpose 
of the trip was to demonstrate to the world that Albania had a 



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Albania: A Country Study 

pragmatic and new foreign policy. While at the UN, Alia delivered 
a major foreign policy address to the General Assembly in which 
he described the changes that had taken place in Albania's foreign 
policy and emphasized that his country wanted to play a more ac- 
tive role in world events. In his address, Alia discussed the ongo- 
ing efforts of the Albanian leadership to adjust the external and 
internal politics of Albania to the realities of the postcommunist 
world. 

The internal politics of Albania, driven by a collapsed econo- 
my, social instability, and democratic ferment, portend continued 
changes in the institutions of government in the early to mid-1990s 
and in the relationship between the country's leaders and its citizens. 

* * * 

Materials on Albania are not as readily available as those on other 
countries in Eastern Europe. Nonetheless, a few useful monographs 
on Albanian politics and government have appeared. The Albani- 
ans: Europe's Forgotten Survivors, by Anton Logoreci, and Socialist Al- 
bania since 1944, by Peter R. Prifti, both of which were published 
during the 1970s, provide useful accounts of political developments 
in Albania since World War II. Albania: A Socialist Maverick, by Elez 
Biberaj, offers a more up-to-date picture of the political scene in 
Albania, pointing out the positive and negative aspects of the 
changes taking place there. Among the more useful articles on Al- 
banian politics is Biberaj 's ' 'Albania at the Crossroads," which 
analyzes political events in 1991 and offers a perspective on what 
might be expected for Albania's future. Also of value are the regular 
articles on Albanian politics by Louis Zanga, appearing in the 
Munich weekly Report on Eastern Europe, published by Radio Free 
Europe/Radio Liberty. (For further information and complete ci- 
tations, see Bibliography.) 



200 



Chapter 5. National Security 



The black, double-headed eagle, a traditional symbol of Albania 



ALBANIA BECAME INDEPENDENT in 1912 when the Great 
Powers of Europe decided that its formation would enhance the 
balance of power on the continent. Small, weak, and isolated, Al- 
bania faced persistent threats of domination, dismemberment, or 
partition by more powerful neighbors, but struggled to maintain 
its independence and territorial integrity through successive alli- 
ances with Italy, Yugoslavia (see Glossary), the Soviet Union, and 
China. The Albanian Communist Party (ACP— from 1948 the Al- 
banian Party of Labor) used the perception of a country under siege 
to mobilize the population, establish political legitimacy, and justify 
domestic repression. Yet it claimed success in that, under its rule, 
Albania's allies guaranteed its defense against external threats and 
were increasingly less able to dominate it or interfere in its inter- 
nal affairs. After a period of isolation between 1978 and 1985, 
however, Albania looked to improved relations with its neighbors 
to enhance its security. 

The modern armed forces grew out of the partisan bands of 
World War II, which fought the Italians and Germans as well as 
rivals within the resistance. By the time the Germans withdrew 
their forces from Albania in November 1944, the communist-led 
National Liberation Front (NLF) held the dominant position among 
the partisan groups and was able to assume control of the country 
without fighting any major battles. The armed forces in 1992 were 
under the control of the Ministry of Defense, and all branches were 
included within the People's Army. Total active-duty personnel 
strength was about 48,000 in 1991 . Most troops were conscripted, 
and approximately one-half of the eligible recruits were drafted, 
usually at age nineteen. The tanks, aircraft, and other weapons 
and equipment in the inventory of the armed forces were of Soviet 
or Chinese design and manufacture. The People's Army, consist- 
ing of professional officers, conscripted soldiers, mobilized reserves, 
and citizens with paramilitary training, was organized to mount 
a limited territorial defense and extended guerrilla warfare against 
a foreign aggressor and occupation army. However, it remained 
the weakest army in Europe in early 1992. 

Albania lacked the industrial or economic base to maintain its 
army independently and required external assistance to support 
its modest armed forces. After World War II, it relied on Yugo- 
slavia and the Soviet Union, in turn, for military assistance. When 
Albania split from the Soviet Union in 1961, China became its main 



203 



Albania: A Country Study 

ally and supplier of military equipment. Chinese assistance was 
sufficient to maintain equipment previously furnished by the Soviet 
Union and to replace some of the older weapons as they became 
obsolete. However, this aid was curtailed in 1978, and Albania 
lacked a major external patron after that time. 

After becoming first secretary of the Albanian Party of Labor 
and president of Albania when longtime leader Enver Hoxha died 
in 1985, Ramiz Alia gradually relaxed the Stalinist system of po- 
litical terror and coercion established and maintained by his 
predecessor. The impact of changes in the Soviet Union and the 
subsequent collapse of communism in Eastern Europe, particularly 
in Romania, combined to increase pressure for internal liberali- 
zation in Albania during the late 1980s and early 1990s. 

The Ministry of Internal Affairs controlled the police and secu- 
rity forces until it was abolished and replaced by the Ministry of 
Public Order in April 1991. Although details of the organization 
of the Ministry of Public Order were not generally known, some 
observers believed it had the same basic components as its predeces- 
sor. They were the National Information Service (successor to the 
hated Sigurimi, more formally Drejtoria e Sigurimit te Shtetit or 
Directorate of State Security), the Frontier Guards, and the Peo- 
ple's Police. 

The security forces traditionally exerted even more rigid con- 
trols over the population than those exercised by similar forces in 
other East European states. However, under Alia they did not en- 
force the communist order as they had when Hoxha ruled Alba- 
nia. Alia curtailed some of their more repressive practices, and they 
ultimately failed to protect the regime when the communist party's 
monopoly on power was threatened in 1 990 and ended in 1991. 
In large part, that threat came from a crippled economy, short- 
ages of food and medicine, manifestations of new political freedoms 
(including strikes and massive public demonstrations that occurred 
with impunity), and calls by the new democratic movement for 
eliminating repression by the security forces, releasing political 
prisoners, and establishing respect for human rights. 

Development of the Armed Forces 

Albania's military heritage antedating World War II is high- 
lighted by the exploits of its fifteenth-century national hero known 
as Skanderbeg, who gained a brief period of independence for 
the country during his opposition to the Ottoman Empire (see 
Glossary). In the seventeenth century, many ethnic Albanians, most 
notably members of the Koprulu family, served with great dis- 
tinction in the Ottoman army and administration (see Albanians 



204 



National Security 



under Ottoman Rule, ch. 1). National feelings, aroused late in the 
nineteenth century, became more intense during the early twen- 
tieth century, and fairly sizable armed groups of Albanians rebelled 
against their Ottoman rulers. However, Albania achieved national 
independence in 1912 as a result of agreement among the Great 
Powers of Europe rather than through a major military victory or 
armed struggle. 

Hardy Albanian mountaineers have had a reputation as ex- 
cellent fighters for nearly 2,000 years. Nevertheless, they rarely 
fought in an organized manner for an objective beyond the defense 
of tribal areas against incursions by marauding neighbors. Oc- 
casions were few when Albanians rose up against occupying for- 
eign powers. Conquerors generally left the people alone in their 
isolated mountain homelands, and, because a feudal tribal society 
persisted, little, if any, sense of national unity or loyalty to an 
Albanian nation developed (see Traditional Social Patterns and 
Values, ch. 2). 

The Romans recruited some of their best soldiers from the regions 
that later became Albania. The territory of modern Albania was 
part of the Byzantine Empire, and the Bui gars, Venetians, and 
Serbs took turns contesting their control of Albania between the 
tenth and the fourteenth centuries. As the power of the Byzantine 
Empire waned, the forerunners of modern Albania joined forces 
with the Serbs and other Balkan peoples to prevent the encroach- 
ment of the Ottoman Empire into southeastern Europe. The Ot- 
toman victory over their combined forces at Kosovo Polje in 1389, 
however, ushered in an era of Ottoman control over the Balkans. 

The Albanian hero Skanderbeg, born Gjergj Kastrioti and re- 
named Skanderbeg after Alexander the Great, was one of the janis- 
saries (see Glossary) who became famous fighting for the Ottoman 
Turks in Serbia and Hungary. He was almost exclusively respon- 
sible for the one period of Albanian independence before 1912. 
Although it endured for twenty-four years, this brief period of in- 
dependence ended about a decade after his death in 1468. In 1443 
Skanderbeg rebelled against his erstwhile masters and established 
Albania's independence with the assistance of the Italian city-state 
of Venice. He repulsed several Ottoman attempts to reconquer Al- 
bania until his death. The Ottoman Turks soon recaptured most 
of Albania, seized the Venetian coastal ports in Albania, and even 
crossed the Italian Alps and raided Venice. The Ottomans retook 
the last Venetian garrison in Albania at Shkoder in 1479, but the 
Venetians continued to dispute Ottoman control of Albania and 
its contiguous waters for at least the next four centuries. Albanian 



205 



Albania: A Country Study 



soldiers continued to serve in the military forces of the Ottoman 
Empire in the vicinity of the Mediterranean into the nineteenth 
century. 

From Independence to World War II 

Organized military action had a negligible effect in Albania's 
attaining national independence. Some revolutionary activity oc- 
curred during the rise of Albanian nationalism in the late nineteenth 
and early twentieth centuries. Albanian insurgents and Ottoman 
forces clashed as early as 1884, but although Albanians resisted 
Ottoman oppression against themselves, they supported the Otto- 
man Turks in their hostilities with the Greeks and Slavs. 

By 1901 about 8,000 armed Albanians were assembled in 
Shkoder, but a situation resembling anarchy more than revolution 
prevailed in the country during the early 1900s. There were inci- 
dents of banditry and pillage, arrests, and many futile Ottoman 
efforts to restore order. Guerrilla activity increased after 1906, and 
there were several incidents that produced martyrs but were not 
marked by great numbers of casualties. Although it was disor- 
ganized and never assumed the proportions of a serious struggle, 
the resistance was, nevertheless, instrumental in maintaining the 
pressure that brought international attention to the aspirations of 
Albanian nationalists, who proclaimed Albania's independence on 
November 28, 1912. 

Albanian forces played a minor role in the First Balkan War of 
1912-13, in which Bulgaria, Serbia, and Greece attempted to 
eliminate the last vestiges of Ottoman control over the Balkans. 
At the end of 1912, however, the Ottoman Turks held only the 
Shkoder garrison, which they did not surrender until April 1913. 
After the Second Balkan War, when the Great Powers prevailed 
upon the Montenegrins who had laid siege to Shkoder to withdraw, 
independent Albania was recognized. However, less than 50 per- 
cent of the ethnic Albanians living in the Balkans were included 
within the boundaries of the new state. Large numbers of Albani- 
ans were left in Montenegro, Macedonia, and especially Kosovo 
(see Glossary), sowing the seeds for potential ethnic conflict in the 
future (see Evolution of National Security Policy, this ch.). 

World War I began before Albania could establish a viable 
government, much less form, train, and equip a military estab- 
lishment. It was essentially a noncombatant nation that served as 
a battleground for the belligerents. However, during the war, it 
was occupied alternately by countries of each alliance. In 1916 it 
was the scene of fighting between Austro-Hungarian forces and 
Italian, French, and Greek forces. In 1918 the Austro-Hungarians 



206 



National Security 



were finally driven out of Albania by the Italians and the French. 
Albania emerged from the war with its territorial integrity intact, 
although Serbia, Montenegro, Italy, and Greece had sought to par- 
tition it. Italy, in particular, had entered the war on the side of 
the Triple Entente with the aim of acquiring parts of northern Al- 
bania (see World War I and Its Effects on Albania, ch. 1). 

Ahmed Zogu created the first armed national forces of any con- 
sequence. He served as minister of internal affairs and minister 
of war until 1922 and prime minister thereafter, except for a brief 
period of exile in 1924. Before 1925 these forces consisted of about 
5,000 men, who were selected from Zogu's home district to ensure 
their loyalty to him. In 1925 Albania began drafting men accord- 
ing to a policy of universal conscription that was carried out with 
Italian assistance and allowed a considerable degree of Italian con- 
trol. The initial drafts yielded about 5,000 to 6,000 troops per year 
from the approximately 10,000 men who annually reached the eligi- 
ble age. The Italians equipped and provided most of the training 
and tactical guidance to Albanian forces and therefore exercised 
virtual command over them. 

Under pressure from a more proximate Yugoslav threat to its ter- 
ritorial integrity, Albania placed its security in Italian hands in 
November 1927 when it signed the Second Treaty of Tirane. The 
original treaty, signed one year earlier, pledged the parties to mutual 
respect for the territorial status quo between them. The successor 
document established a twenty-year alliance and a program of mili- 
tary cooperation between them. Thus, Albania became a virtual pro- 
tectorate of Italy, with the latter receiving oil rights, permission to 
build an industrial and military infrastructure, and a high-profile 
role in Albania's military leadership and domestic political affairs. 

At about the same time, the Gendarmerie was formed with British 
assistance. Although its director was Albanian, a British general 
served as its inspector general and other British officers filled its 
staff. It became an effective internal security and police organiza- 
tion. The Gendarmerie had a commandant in each of Albania's 
ten prefectures, a headquarters in each subprefecture (up to eight 
in one prefecture), and an office in each of nearly 150 communi- 
ties. For many years, it had the most complete telephone system 
in the country. The Italians objected strenuously, but King Zog, 
as Zogu became in 1928, relied on the Gendarmerie as a personal 
safeguard against the pervasive Italian influence within his regu- 
lar armed forces. He kept the force under his direct control and 
retained its British advisers until 1938. Zog also retained a sizable 
armed group from his home region as an additional precaution. 



207 



Albania: A Country Study 
World War II 

King Zog's effort to reduce Italian control over his armed forces 
was insufficient to save them from quick humiliation when the 
Italians attacked on April 7, 1939. Although annual conscription 
had generated a trained reserve of at least 50,000, the Albanian 
government lacked the time to mobilize it in defense of the coun- 
try. The weak Albanian resistance, consisting of a force of 14,000 
against the Italian force of 40,000, was overcome within one week, 
and Italy occupied and annexed the country. Later in 1939, the 
Italians subsumed some Albanian forces into their units. They 
gained little, however, from Albanian soldiers, who were unwill- 
ing to fight for the occupying power, even against their traditional 
Greek enemies. They deserted in large numbers. 

Benito Mussolini, the Italian fascist premier, and his Axis part- 
ners viewed Albania as a strategic path through the Balkans from 
which to challenge British forces in Egypt and throughout North 
Africa. Albania served as the bridgehead for Mussolini's invasion 
of Greece in October 1940, and Italy committed eight of its ten 
divisions occupying the country. 

The Albanian Communist Party and its armed resistance forces 
were organized by the Communist Party of Yugoslavia in 1941 
and subsequently supported and dominated by it. Resistance to 
the Italian occupation gathered strength slowly around the party- 
controlled National Liberation Movement (NLM, predecessor of 
the NLF) and the liberal National Front. Beginning in September 
1942, small armed units of the NLF initiated a guerrilla war against 
superior Italian forces, using the mountainous terrain to their ad- 
vantage. The National Front, by contrast, avoided combat, hav- 
ing concluded that the Great Powers, not armed struggle, would 
decide Albania's fate after the war. 

After March 1943, the NLM formed its first and second regu- 
lar battalions, which subsequendy became brigades, to operate along 
with existing smaller and irregular units. Resistance to the occu- 
pation grew rapidly as signs of Italian weakness became apparent. 
At the end of 1942, guerrilla forces numbered no more than 8,000 
to 10,000. By the summer of 1943, when the Italian effort collapsed, 
almost all of the mountainous interior was controlled by resistance 
units. 

The NLM formally established the National Liberation Army 
(NLA) in July 1943, with Spiro Moisiu as its military chief and 
Hoxha as its political officer. It had 20,000 regular soldiers and 
guerrillas in the field by that time. However, the NLA's military 
activities in 1943 were directed as much against the party's domestic 



208 



National Security 



political opponents, including prewar liberal, nationalist, and 
monarchist parties, as against the occupation forces. 

Mussolini was overthrown in July 1 943 , and Italy formally with- 
drew from Albania in September. Seven German divisions took 
over the occupation from their Italian allies, however. Four of the 
divisions, totalling over 40,000 troops, began a winter offensive 
in November 1943 against the NLA in southern Albania, where 
most of the armed resistance to the Wehrmacht and support for 
the communist party was concentrated. They inflicted devastat- 
ing losses on NLA forces in southern Albania in January 1944. 
The resistance, however, regrouped and grew as final defeat for 
the Axis partners appeared certain. By the end of 1944, the NLA 
probably totaled about 70,000 soldiers organized into several di- 
visions. It fought in major battles for Tirane and Shkoder and pur- 
sued German forces into Kosovo at the end of the war. By its own 
account, the NLA killed, wounded, or captured 80,000 Italian and 
German soldiers while suffering about 28,000 casualties. 

The communist-controlled NLF and NLA had solidified their 
hold over the country by the end of October 1944. Some units, 
including one whose political officer, Ramiz Alia, would eventu- 
ally succeed Enver Hoxha as leader of Albania, went on to fight 
the Germans in Albanian-populated regions of Yugoslavia, includ- 
ing Kosovo. Hoxha had risen rapidly from his post as political officer 
of the NLA to leadership of the communist party, and he headed 
the communist government that controlled the country at the end 
of World War II. Albania became the only East European state 
in which the communists gained power without the support of the 
Soviet Union's Red Army. They relied instead on advice and sub- 
stantial assistance from Yugoslav communists and Allied forces in 
occupied Italy. 

Postwar Development 

Initially, Albania's postwar military forces were equipped and 
trained according to Yugoslavia's model. Between 1945 and 1948, 
Yugoslavia's control over the Albanian armed forces was tighter 
than Italy's control had been. Not only did the Yugoslavs have 
military advisers and instructors in regular units, but Yugoslav po- 
litical officers also established party control over the Albanian mili- 
tary to ensure its reliability and loyalty. 

Albania was involved in several skirmishes early in the Cold War. 
In 1946 Albanian coastal artillery batteries fired on British and 
Greek ships in the Corfu Channel. Later that year, two British de- 
stroyers were damaged by Albanian mines in the channel. Together 
with Bulgaria and Yugoslavia, Albania aided communist forces in 



209 



Albania: A Country Study 

the civil war in Greece between 1946 and 1948 and allowed them 
to establish operational bases on its territory. 

Yugoslavia used its close alliance with Albania to establish a 
strong pro-Yugoslav faction within the Albanian Communist Party. 
Led by Koci Xoxe, the group served Yugoslav interests on the is- 
sue of ethnic Albanians in Yugoslavia. It also cultivated pro- 
Yugoslav elements within the military and security forces to en- 
hance its influence. It sought a close alliance, a virtual union, of 
communist states in the Balkans, including Albania, under its 
leadership. However, when Yugoslavia embarked on its separate 
road to socialism in 1948 and was subsequently expelled from the 
Communist Information Bureau (Cominform — see Glossary), Al- 
bania used the opportunity to escape the overwhelming Yugoslav 
influence. The nation completely severed its ties with Yugoslavia 
and aligned itself directly with the Soviet Union. 

The shift to Soviet patronage did not substantially change Al- 
bania's military organization or equipment because Yugoslav forces 
had followed the Soviet pattern until 1948. Albania joined the 
Soviet-led Warsaw Treaty Organization (see Glossary), popularly 
known as the Warsaw Pact, on May 14, 1955, but did not partici- 
pate in joint Warsaw Pact military exercises because of its distance 
from other members of the alliance. Soviet aid to Albania includ- 
ed advisory personnel, a considerable supply of conventional 
weapons, surplus naval vessels from World War II, and aircraft. 
Albania provided the Soviet Union with a strategically located base 
for a submarine flotilla at Sazan Island, near Vlore, which gave 
it access to the Mediterranean Sea (see fig. 1). Albania also served 
as a pressure point for Stalin's campaign against Yugoslavia's in- 
dependent stance within the communist camp. Albania preferred 
the Soviet Union to Yugoslavia as an ally because its distance and 
lack of a common border appeared to limit the extent to which it 
could interfere in Albania's internal affairs. 

Albania's relations with the Soviet Union were strained in 1956 
when Nikita Khrushchev improved Soviet relations with Yugosla- 
via. Hoxha feared that, as part of the rapprochement with Yugo- 
slavia, Khrushchev would allow Tito to reestablish Yugoslavia's 
earlier influence in Albania. Albanian-Soviet ties deteriorated rapid- 
ly in 1961, when Albania joined China in opposing the Soviet de- 
Stalinization campaign in the communist world (see Albania and 
the Soviet Union, ch. 1). De-Stalinization was a threat to the po- 
litical survival of an unreconstructed Stalinist like Hoxha. In 
response, the Soviet Union cancelled its military aid program to 
Albania, withdrew its military advisers, and forced Albanian officers 
studying in Soviet military schools to return home in April 1961. 



210 



National Security 



Albania in turn revoked Soviet access to Sazan Island, and Soviet 
submarines returned home in June 1961 . Albania broke diplomatic 
relations with the Soviet Union on December 19, 1961; it became 
an inactive member of the Warsaw Pact but did not formally with- 
draw from the alliance until 1968. 

As tensions grew between Albania and the Soviet Union, Alba- 
nia sought Chinese patronage. In the 1960s, China succeeded the 
Soviet Union as Albania's sole patron. Albania provided China 
with little practical support, but its value as an international polit- 
ical ally was sufficient for the Chinese to continue military as- 
sistance. China provided aid in quantities required to maintain the 
armed forces at about the same levels of personnel and equipment 
that they had achieved when they were supported by the Soviet 
Union. The shift to Chinese training and equipment, however, 
probably caused some deterioration in the tactical and technical 
proficiency of Albanian military personnel. 

Evolution of National Security Policy 

Like any country, Albania's national security is largely deter- 
mined by its geography and neighbors. It shares a 2 82 -kilometer 
border with Greece to the south and southeast. It has a 287-kilo- 
meter border with the Yugoslav republics of Serbia and Montenegro 
to the north and a 151-kilometer border with the former Yugoslav 
Republic of Macedonia to the east. Albania's other closest neigh- 
bor and one-time invader, Italy, is located less than 100 kilometers 
across the Adriatic Sea to the west. Albania has had longstanding 
and potentially dangerous territorial and ethnic disputes with Greece 
and Yugoslavia. It has traditionally feared an accommodation be- 
tween them in which they would agree to divide Albania. Greece 
has historical ties with a region of southern Albania known as North- 
ern Epirus among the Greeks and inhabited by ethnic Greeks, with 
estimates of their number ranging from less than 60,000 to 400,000. 
Moreover, there is serious potential for conflict with Yugoslavia, or 
specifically the Yugoslav Republic of Serbia, over Kosovo. Never- 
theless, for many years, Albania perceived a seaborne attack by 
a superpower from the Adriatic Sea as a greater threat than a large- 
scale ground assault across the rugged terrain of eastern Albania. 
Any attack on Albania would have proved difficult because more 
than three-quarters of its territory is hilly or mountainous. The 
country's small size, however, provides littie strategic depth for 
conventional defensive operations. 

In the early years of communist rule, Albania's national security 
policy emphasized the internal security of the new communist re- 
gime and only, secondarily, external threats. Evaluated against this 



211 



Albania: A Country Study 

priority, Albania's national security policy was largely successful 
until 1990. Because its military forces, however, were incapable 
of deterring or repulsing external threats, Albania sought to ob- 
tain political or military guarantees from its allies or the interna- 
tional community. 

Initially, Albania's national security policy focused on extend- 
ing the authority of the Tosk-dominated communist party from 
Tirane and southern Albania into Geg-inhabited northern regions 
where neither the party nor the NLA enjoyed strong support from 
the population (see Ethnicity, ch. 2). In some places, the party and 
NLA faced armed opposition. The government emphasized polit- 
ical indoctrination within the military in an attempt to make the 
armed forces a pillar of support for the communist system and a 
unifying force for the people of Albania. In general, however, there 
were few serious internal or external threats to communist con- 
trol. In the early years of communist rule, the communist party 
relied on its close alliance with Yugoslavia for its external security. 
This alliance was an unnatural one, however, given the history of 
mutual suspicion and tension between the two neighbors and Yu- 
goslavia's effort to include Albania in an alliance of Balkan states 
under its control. In 1948 Yugoslavia's expulsion from the Soviet- 
led communist world ended the alliance. 

The Soviet Union assumed the role of Albania's principal bene- 
factor from late 1948. Albania was a founding member of the War- 
saw Pact in 1955, and its security was guaranteed against Yugoslav 
encroachment by its participation in the Soviet-led collective security 
system until 1961 . However, the Soviet Union suspended its mili- 
tary cooperation and security guarantees when Albania supported 
China in the Sino-Soviet split (see Albania and China, ch. 1). 

Albania's military weakness and general ideological compatibility 
with China led it to accept Chinese sponsorship and military as- 
sistance. It did not, however, formally withdraw from the War- 
saw Pact until September 13, 1968, after the Soviet-led Warsaw 
Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia. After the invasion, Albania drew 
closer to China, seeking protection against a possible attempt by 
the Soviet Union to retrieve Albania into the East European fold. 
China subsequently increased its military assistance to Albania. 
Despite Chinese guarantees of support, Albania apparentiy doubted 
the efficacy of a deterrent provided by a distant and relatively weak 
China against a proximate Soviet threat. Some knowledgeable 
Western observers believed that, at Chinese insistence, Albania 
had signed a mutual assistance agreement with Yugoslavia and 
Romania to be implemented in the event of a Soviet attack on any 
one of them. 



212 



National Security 



Following China's lead, Albania accused both the United States 
and the Soviet Union of tacitly collaborating to divide the world 
into spheres of influence, becoming a vociferous international op- 
ponent of the use of military force abroad and the establishment 
of foreign military bases, particularly by the United States or the 
Soviet Union. In particular, Albania persistently called for a reduc- 
tion of United States and Soviet naval forces in the Mediterranean 
Sea. 

During the 1970s, Albania viewed improved relations between 
the United States and China as detrimental to its interests. This 
perception increased after the death of Mao Zedong in 1976. In 
1978 China ceased its military and economic assistance to Alba- 
nia as the Asian superpower adopted a less radical stance on the 
international scene and turned more attention to its domestic affairs. 
According to some analysts, however, China continued to supply 
Albania with spare parts for its Chinese-made weapons and equip- 
ment during the 1980s. 

In the decade between Mao's death and Hoxha's death in 1985, 
Albania practiced self-reliance and international isolation. After 
succeeding Hoxha, President Ramiz Alia moved in a new direc- 
tion, seeking improved relations with Yugoslavia, Greece, and 
Turkey and even participating in the Balkan Foreign Ministers 
Conference in 1988. He attempted to moderate the impact of the 
Kosovo issue on relations with Yugoslavia. Greece downplayed its 
historical claims to the disputed territory of Northern Epirus dur- 
ing the 1980s, when the two countries improved their bilateral re- 
lations. Alia also encouraged Greece and Turkey to withdraw from 
the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and Bulgaria and 
Romania to withdraw from the Warsaw Pact. In addition, Alia 
improved relations with Italy and the Federal Republic of Germa- 
ny (West Germany), which may have resulted in some military 
sales to Albania, including missile and military communications 
systems. 

In 1986 the first deputy minister of people's defense and chief 
of the general staff summarized Albania's approach to national secu- 
rity when he stated that Albania's security depended on carefully 
studying the international situation and taking corresponding ac- 
tion. Better ties with its neighbors promised to give Albania time 
to generate support in the international arena and bring interna- 
tional opprobrium to bear on any potential aggressor while its forces 
mounted a conventional defense and, then, guerrilla warfare against 
enemy occupation forces. 

In early 1992, the outlook for Albanian national security was 
mixed. There were important positive developments but also some 



213 



Albania: A Country Study 



negative trends. The Treaty on Conventional Armed Forces in 
Europe — usually referred to as the Conventional Forces in Europe, 
or CFE, Treaty — was signed in 1990 and promised reductions in 
the ground and air forces of nearby NATO members Greece and 
Italy and former Warsaw Pact member Bulgaria. It therefore placed 
predictable limits on the future size of the military threat to Alba- 
nia from most of its neighbors. But the CFE Treaty did not affect 
nonaligned states such as Yugoslavia, and Albania remained militar- 
ily, economically, and technologically weak. 

In June 1990, seeking to develop closer ties to the rest of Eu- 
rope, Albania began to participate in the Conference on Security 
and Cooperation in Europe (CSCE — see Glossary) as an observer 
state. It received full membership one year later. Until joining, 
Albania had been the only state in Europe not a member of CSCE. 
Membership afforded Albania a degree of protection against ex- 
ternal aggression that it probably had not enjoyed previously. It 
also committed Albania to respect existing international bound- 
aries in Europe and basic human rights and political freedoms at 
home. 

In the early 1990s, Albania sought a broader range of diplomatic 
relations, reestablishing official ties with the Soviet Union in 1990 
and the United States in 1991 . It also sought to join the North At- 
lantic Cooperation Council, a NATO-associated organization in 
which other former Warsaw Pact countries were already par- 
ticipating. 

On the negative side of Albania's national security balance sheet, 
the improved European security environment undermined the com- 
munist regime's ability to mobilize the population by propagan- 
dizing external threats. In the early 1990s, the military press cited 
problems in convincing Albania's youth of the importance of mili- 
tary service and training, given the fact that the Soviet Union was 
withdrawing its forces from Eastern Europe, that the CFE Treaty 
promised major reductions in conventional forces, and that most 
conceivable threats seemed to be receding. The accounts cited in- 
stances of "individual and group excesses," unexcused absences, 
and the failure to perform assigned duties. These problems were 
ascribed to political liberalization and democratization in the Peo- 
ple's Army, factors that supposedly weakened military order and 
discipline, led to breaches of regulations, and interfered with mili- 
tary training and readiness. 

Albania's most sensitive security problem centered on ethnic Al- 
banians living outside the country's borders, including the nearly 
2 million living in Kosovo, a province of Yugoslavia's Serbian 
Republic. The area recognized as Albania by the Great Powers 



214 



National Security 



in 1913 was such that more ethnic Albanians were left outside the 
new state than included within it. Tension in Kosovo between ethnic 
Albanians, who made up 90 percent of its approximately 2 million 
residents, and the dwindling number of Serbs living there was a 
constant source of potential conflict between Albania and Serbia. 

Yugoslavia's Serbian Republic ruled Kosovo harshly until the 
1970s when it became an autonomous province, theoretically with 
almost the same rights as the Serbian Republic itself. In 1981, 
however, one-quarter of the Yugoslav People's Army (YPA) was 
deployed in Kosovo in response to unrest, which began with riots 
in Pristina. Yugoslavia asserted more direct control over Kosovo 
in the late 1980s in response to alleged Albanian separatism, which 
aimed to push Serbians out of an area they considered to be their 
ancestral home. In 1989, relying on scarcely veiled threats and ac- 
tual demonstrations of force, Serbia forced Kosovo to accept legis- 
lation that substantially reduced its autonomy and then suspended 
Kosovo's parliament and government in 1990. Sporadic skirmishes 
erupted between armed Albanian and Serbian civilians, who were 
backed by the Serb-dominated YPA. Meanwhile, the Serbs accused 
Albania of interference in Kosovo and of inciting its Albanian popu- 
lation against Yugoslav rule. 

For their part, Kosovars claimed that they were the victims of 
Serbian nationalism, repression, and discrimination. In 1991 they 
voted in a referendum to become an independent republic of Yu- 
goslavia, and Albania immediately recognized Kosovo as such. 
Although President Alia criticized Yugoslav policy in Kosovo, he 
carefully avoided making claims on its territory. Nevertheless, Serbs 
believed the vote for republic status was a precursor to demands 
for complete independence from Yugoslavia and eventual unifica- 
tion with Albania. As Yugoslavia collapsed into a civil war that 
pitted intensely nationalist Serbia against other ethnic groups of 
the formerly multinational state, Albania remained circumspect 
in its pronouncements on and relations with Kosovo in order to 
avoid a conflict. However, a series of border incidents, involving 
Serb forces killing ten Albanians along the Albanian-Yugoslav 
border, occurred in late 1991 and early 1992. Albanians and Eu- 
ropeans were seriously concerned that Serb forces would direct mili- 
tary operations against ethnic Albanians in Kosovo and spark an 
international conflict with Albania. Albania's armed forces were 
poorly prepared to fight the larger, better equipped, and combat- 
experienced Serb forces. 

Defense Organization 

As chief of both party and state, Enver Hoxha was commander 



215 



Albania: A Country Study 

in chief and had direct authority over the People's Army until his 
death in 1985. His successor, Ramiz Alia, also had a strong con- 
nection to the People's Army through his military career, having 
reached the rank of lieutenant colonel and political officer in the 
Fifth Division of the NLA at the age of nineteen. According to the 
constitution adopted in 1976, the People's Assembly, a unicamer- 
al legislative body, had authority to declare mobilization, a state 
of emergency, or war. This authority devolved to the president when 
the People's Assembly was not in session, which was more often 
than not under communist rule, or was unable to meet because 
of the exigencies of a surprise attack on Albania. Albania's interim 
constitutional law, published in December 1990 and enacted in April 
1991, made the president commander in chief of the People's Army 
and chairman of the relatively small Defense Council, composed 
of key party leaders and government officials whose ministries would 
be critical to directing military operations, production, and com- 
munications in wartime (see Reform Politics, ch. 4). 

The People's Army encompassed ground, air and air defense, 
and naval forces. It reported to the minister of people's defense, 
who was a member of the Council of Ministers and was, by law, 
selected by the People's Assembly. The minister of defense had 
traditionally been a deputy prime minister and member of the Po- 
litical Bureau (Politburo) of the party. He exercised day-to-day ad- 
ministrative control and, through the chief of the general staff, 
operational control over all elements of the military establishment. 
The chief of the general staff was second in command of the defense 
establishment. He had traditionally been a candidate member of 
the Politburo. Each commander of a service branch was also a 
deputy minister of defense and advised the minister of people's 
defense on issues relative to his service and coordinated its activi- 
ties within the ministry. Each represented his service in national 
defense planning. 

The major administrative divisions of the People's Army served 
all three services. These divisions included the political, person- 
nel, intelligence, and counterintelligence directorates; the military 
prosecutor's office; and the rear and medical services. The intelli- 
gence directorate collected and reported information on foreign ar- 
mies, especially those of neighboring Yugoslavia and Greece. The 
military prosecutor's office was responsible for military justice. It 
organized military courts composed of a chairman, vice chairman, 
and several assistant judges. The courts heard a variety of cases 
covered by the military section of the penal code. Military crimes 
included breaches of military discipline, regulations, and orders 
as well as political crimes against the state and the socialist order. 



216 



National Security 



Military personnel, reserves, security forces, and local police were 
subject to the jurisdiction of military courts. The medical service 
had departments within each of the military branches providing 
hospital and pharmaceutical services. At the national level, it 
cooperated closely with the Ministry of Health, using military per- 
sonnel, facilities, and equipment to improve sanitary and medical 
conditions throughout the country and to provide emergency med- 
ical assistance during natural disasters. 

Political Control 

The Albanian Party of Labor (APL) had an active and dominant 
organization within the armed forces until it lost its monopoly on 
political power in 1991. The postcommunist political complexion 
of the military was only beginning to evolve in early 1992. The 
great majority of officers in the armed services were still party mem- 
bers in early 1992 (the party was renamed in June 1991 as the So- 
cialist Party of Albania). 

The communist-dominated coalition government, which emerged 
from the spring 1991 elections, promised a sweeping military re- 
form that included the depoliticization of the armed forces. The 
Political Directorate of the People's Army, however, continued to 
exist as part of the Ministry of Defense. The Political Directorate 
controlled political officers within all services and units of the armed 
forces. The communist leadership considered the directorate es- 
sential to ensure that the armed forces conformed with ideology 
as interpreted by the party. 

The reliability of senior military leaders was assured by their 
membership in the party. All students over eighteen years of age 
in military schools were also party members. Younger students were 
members of the Union of Albanian Working Youth and were or- 
ganized into the party's youth committee in the army. Political 
officers indoctrinated conscripts with communist ideology and the 
party line. Reinforcing the actions of officers and military courts, 
they helped ensure discipline in military units. They had authori- 
ty to take action against soldiers whose attitudes or conduct was 
considered contrary to the efficiency or good order of the armed 
forces. Probably only a very few of the conscripts were party mem- 
bers, but nearly all were members of the youth organization. 

In 1966 Hoxha abolished rank designations and uniforms, con- 
demning them as unhealthy bourgeois class distinctions, in keep- 
ing with a similar Chinese move. This measure was intended to 
make the military more egalitarian by bringing officers closer to 
the soldiers under their command. It also reinforced party control 
over the military by reducing the prestige and independence of its 



217 



Albania: A Country Study 



leadership as well as its potential to become a political power center 
rivaling the party. Military professionalism became a secondary 
consideration to political reliability in determining promotions. 

Since World War II, the abrupt shifts in Albanian foreign poli- 
cy had resulted in purges of the officer corps. Those officers trained 
in or closely linked with Yugoslavia, the Soviet Union, or China 
were purged from the ranks and even executed as traitors when 
alliances with these countries came to an end. 

Fearing a decline in his authority and party control over the Peo- 
ple 's Army, Hoxha also conducted a major purge of its senior 
officers during 1974. He dismissed and later executed his longtime 
ally and minister of defense, Beqir Balluku, as well as the chief 
of staff and chief of the political directorate. He replaced Balluku 
with his prime minister, Mehmet Shehu, another close associate 
of many years who had established the military and security forces 
in the late 1940s. Shehu was a founder of the guerrilla movement 
during World War II who attained the rank of lieutenant general. 
He was its most capable military leader, but he apparently com- 
mitted suicide after he and party officials tied closely to him were 
purged in 1981. Prokop Murra, a relatively junior candidate mem- 
ber of the Politburo, succeeded Shehu as minister of defense and 
became a full member of the Politburo in 1986. Kico Mustaqi be- 
came chief of the general staff and first deputy minister of defense, 
as well as a candidate member of the Politburo, in 1986. 

Military influence in politics was restored to its earlier level when 
Mustaqi became minister of defense and a full member of the Polit- 
buro in 1990. This closer integration of the military into the polit- 
ical leadership may have been an effort to ensure the military's 
loyalty at a time of social unrest at home and communist disin- 
tegration in Eastern Europe. In early 1991, however, President 
Alia replaced Mustaqi with Muhamet Karakaci, a young former 
officer and deputy chief of the general staff. Alia reportedly feared 
that Mustaqi was planning a military coup d'etat. 

In November 1991, the communist-dominated coalition govern- 
ment reintroduced military ranks and Western-style uniforms in 
place of plain Chinese fatigues. It pledged to emphasize military 
professionalism, training, and discipline and to eliminate political 
indoctrination from the military. The Albanian Democratic Party 
called for reforms in the armed forces to include reductions in mili- 
tary spending, military units, and conscription and the reorgani- 
zation of unit structures. It proposed and initiated an effort to 
establish contacts and cooperation with Western military establish- 
ments, particularly Turkey's, and to send Albanian officers to study 
and train in foreign military academies. The chief of staff of the 



218 



Bus driver talking 
to soldier at the 
terminus 
near the port 
city of Dunes 
Courtesy Charles Sudetic 




People's Army attended the East- West Seminar on Military Doc- 
trines in Vienna for the first time in 1991. 

People's Army 

In early 1992, the ground, air and air defense, and naval forces 
of the People's Army numbered about 48,000, approximately half 
of whom were conscripts. The ground forces were the predominant 
service, and ground forces commanders exercised broad authority 
over the air and air defense forces in providing air support to ground 
forces units. They also had responsibility for the defense of coastal 
regions and exercised considerable operational control over naval 
units to accomplish this mission. There was less distinction between 
Albania's military services than was normally the case in larger 
Western military establishments. The air and air defense forces 
and the naval forces were usually treated separately because of their 
distinctive missions, equipment, and training, but their personnel 
were frequently referred to as air or naval soldiers. Their organi- 
zation and logistics differed only insofar as their missions and equip- 
ment required. The tactical missions and capabilities of each service 
were specialized in relation to their weapons, and organizational 
patterns appeared similar to most other armed forces throughout 
the world. During the formative years immediately after World 
War II, force structures for each service were adopted directly from 



219 



Albania: A Country Study 

the Soviet model, although a partial realignment according to the 
Chinese pattern occurred after 1961. 

Ground Forces 

In the early 1990s, the ground forces numbered about 35,000, 
or about three-quarters of all armed forces personnel. Because the 
strength of the ground forces was sufficient to man only about two 
divisions, brigades of approximately 3,000 soldiers became the larg- 
est army formation. In 1991 four infantry brigades constituted the 
bulk of combat units in the ground forces. During the 1980s, Al- 
bania had reduced the number of infantry brigades from eight to 
four. It had shifted to fully manned units from its prior reliance 
on the mobilization of reserve soldiers to flesh out a larger num- 
ber of units manned at a lower level. Each brigade had three in- 
fantry battalions and one lightly equipped artillery battalion. 
Armored forces consisted of one tank brigade. Artillery forces were 
increased from one to three regiments during the 1980s, and six 
battalions of coastal artillery were maintained at strategic points 
along the Adriatic Sea littoral. 

As of the early 1990s, most equipment used by the ground forc- 
es was old, and its effectiveness was questionable. In addition, 
shortages of spare parts for Soviet and Chinese equipment reduced 
combat readiness. The infantry brigades lacked mechanization, 
operating only about 130 armored personnel carriers. They included 
Soviet BTR-40, BTR-50, BTR-152, and BRDM-1 vehicles 
produced in the 1950s and Chinese Type-531 armored vehicles. 
Armored forces were equipped with 200 Soviet-made T-34 and 
T-54 tanks. The T-34 was a World War II model, and the more 
recent T-54 was introduced during the late 1950s. Soviet and 
Chinese artillery in the ground forces inventory was towed rather 
than self-propelled. It included Soviet M-1937 and D-l howitzers 
and Chinese Type-66 152mm guns, Chinese Type-59 130mm guns, 
Soviet M-1931/37 and M-1938 guns of 122mm, and Chinese 
Type-60 guns of 122mm. The ground forces also operated Chinese 
Type-63 107mm multiple rocket launchers and a large number of 
Soviet and Chinese mortars, recoilless rifles, and antitank guns. 
Organic air defense equipment for protecting ground forces units 
consisted of several types of Soviet towed antiaircraft guns, including 
the 23mm ZU-23-2, 37mm M-1939, 57mm S-60, and 85mm 
KS-12. 

The lack of modern equipment was a major deficiency in the 
ground forces in the early 1990s. The infantry lacked mobility and 
antitank guided missiles. Moreover, without mobile surface-to-air 
missiles or radar-controlled antiaircraft guns, army units would 



220 



National Security 



be vulnerable to attack by modern fighter-bombers or ground- attack 
aircraft. Yet the obsolescent weapons of the ground forces were 
suited to the relatively low technical skill of the country's soldiers 
as well as its rugged terrain (see fig. 3). The tactical skill of the 
officers might make it possible to deploy this older equipment suc- 
cessfully for a short period in a static defensive posture. A defen- 
sive operation that prevented an enemy from rapidly neutralizing 
Albanian opposition would enable Albania to seek international 
diplomatic or military assistance against an aggressor. Alternatively, 
it would gain time and retain the military equipment needed to 
establish a long-term guerrilla force capable of resisting a better 
armed conventional occupation army. The logistical support re- 
quired to resupply and maintain such a defense, however, was either 
lacking or nearly impossible to achieve over much of the terrain. 

Air and Air Defense Forces 

The air and air defense forces, founded in April 1952, are the 
most junior of the three services. In 1991 the personnel strength 
of these forces was about 11,000, the majority of whom consisted 
of officers assigned to ground-based air defense units. The air force 
had nearly 100 combat aircraft supplied by China. The main air 
bases were located near Tirane, Shijak, Vlore, Sazan Island, and 
Kucove. The missions of the air force were to repel the enemy at 
the country's borders and to prevent violations of national airspace. 
However, the obsolescence of Albania's combat aircraft and prob- 
able deficiencies in readiness made it unlikely that the air force could 
fulfill these missions against the more modern aircraft of neigh- 
boring countries. The air force was a source of prestige for the re- 
gime, but for practical purposes it served mainly to provide the 
core for upgrading in the event that a new, technologically advanced 
foreign sponsor appeared in the future. 

After 1970 the air force replaced its entire inventory of Soviet 
MiG-15 and MiG-17 aircraft acquired during the 1950s with 
Chinese-produced airplanes. It had one squadron of Chinese J-7s 
and two squadrons of J-6 fighter-interceptors, with ten to twelve 
aircraft per squadron. Ground-attack and support aircraft includ- 
ed two squadrons of Chinese J-4s and one squadron of J- 2 fighter- 
bombers. The most modern of these Chinese-built aircraft, the J-7, 
was designed along the lines of the Soviet MiG-21 , which was first 
introduced in the 1960s. The J-6 fighter-interceptor was the Chinese 
version of the MiG-19 from the 1950s. These aircraft were limited 
to daytime operations, lacking the sophisticated radar and avion- 
ics required to give them night and all-weather flight capabilities. 
Military transport aircraft and helicopters consisted of one squadron 



221 



Albania: A Country Study 

of C-5 transports, a Chinese-manufactured Soviet An-2; one squad- 
ron of Chinese Li-2 transports; and two squadrons of Chinese Z-5 
helicopters. The Z-5 was basically a Soviet Mi-4. 

Air defense equipment was primarily Soviet in origin. Four sites 
equipped with Soviet SA-2 surface-to-air missiles constituted a point 
air defense system for several strategic locations in Albania. The 
SA-2 was received initially in 1964 and became obsolete in the 
1970s. The Chinese apparently did not upgrade Albania's capa- 
bility. Until 1976 China supplied most of the spare parts required 
to maintain the air force's equipment. After 1976, however, the 
combat readiness of the air force declined because deliveries of spare 
parts were reduced. The aircraft inventory also shrank after Chi- 
na ceased its arms supply relationship with Albania. Increasingly, 
older aircraft that could not be repaired left the inventory and were 
not replaced. 

Naval Forces 

None of Albania's pre-World War II naval forces survived the 
occupation of Albania; the new navy was established in August 
1945. The naval forces are exclusively coastal defense forces and 
closely coordinate their operations with the ground forces. Their 
mission is to provide the initial line of resistance to a seaborne in- 
vasion of Albania. Considerably weaker than their potential ad- 
versaries, the naval forces are intended to deny an aggressor 
uninhibited access to the waters adjacent to Albania. They would 
be largely sacrificed in the effort to defeat at least some of the units 
of a large, well-equipped opposing naval assault force. They would 
try to prevent submarines from approaching Albanian coasts and 
ports, to lay and sweep mines, and to escort convoys. The absence 
of a shore-based coastal defense force with surface-to-surface mis- 
siles, however, is a serious deficiency in the navy's ability to repel 
a seaborne attack on Albania. Naval forces, together with police 
patrol boats, are also responsible for preventing smuggling and con- 
trolling access to Albanian ports. 

Naval forces are organized into two coastal defense brigades com- 
posed of minor surface combatants located at the Durres and Vlore 
naval bases. All combatants are assigned to one of these bases. Other 
naval facilities are located at Sazan Island, Pasha Liman on the 
strait of Otranto coast, Sarande, and Shengjin. The Soviet Union 
constructed the base at Sazan Island, but it has not been used 
regularly since Soviet- Albanian relations ruptured in 1961. Naval 
personnel numbered about 2,000, with roughly one-half being con- 
scripts. 



222 



National Security 



The strength of the naval forces shrank between the mid-1970s 
and 1991 . In particular, old Italian ships of World War II vintage 
and most of Albania's minesweepers left the inventory. Torpedo 
boats and coastal patrol craft constituted the bulk of the naval forces. 
In 1991 Albania had twenty-nine Chinese-built Huchwan hydrofoil 
torpedo boats, each of which had two 533mm torpedo tubes. Patrol 
craft included six Chinese-made Shanghai-II fast inshore gunboats 
and two older Soviet Kronshtadt-class patrol boats. Minesweep- 
ing forces consisted of old Soviet-built T-301 and PO-2 boats. The 
naval forces also had two obsolete Soviet Whiskey-class diesel sub- 
marines constructed during the 1950s. 

Military Manpower 

Traditionally most armed forces conscripts served for two years. 
Conscripts in the air and air defense and naval forces as well as 
noncommissioned officers and technical specialists in certain units 
served three years. In 1991, however, the freely elected, communist- 
controlled coalition government reduced the basic two-year term 
of service to eighteen months. This shorter term of service for con- 
scripts and the small size of the People's Army would force Alba- 
nia to rely on large-scale mobilization to mount a credible defense 
of the country. Given the small population and economy of Alba- 
nia, full mobilization would seriously disrupt the civilian produc- 
tion and logistics necessary to sustain military operations. The 
military reserve training needed to support mobilization plans also 
imposed a burden on the country's economic activity. In the early 
1990s, the population was relatively young, with fully 60 percent 
under the age of thirty. There were just under 500,000 males be- 
tween the ages of fifteen and fifty. Of this total number, approxi- 
mately 75 percent, or nearly 375,000, were physically suited to carry 
out military duties. More than half of them had had prior military 
service and participated in reserve military activities on an annual 
basis. Women were also trained in the reserves and available for 
mobilization, although in unknown numbers. 

In the early 1990s, plans for expanding the existing military es- 
tablishment during mobilization were unclear to Western observ- 
ers. Prior to the 1980s, the ground forces maintained a peacetime 
structure with low personnel strength and low combat readiness. 
Divisions would be brought to full strength and readiness through 
the mobilization of reserves. The smaller brigade structure in- 
troduced in the 1980s, however, made it unlikely that newly mobi- 
lized soldiers could be integrated into existing units in the regular 
ground forces in wartime. Mobilized troops were more likely to 
be employed as light infantry, special forces, or guerrillas rather 



223 



Albania: A Country Study 

than in more technically oriented tank, artillery, air and air defense, 
or naval units. However, the possibility of mobilizing a substan- 
tial segment of the population for guerrilla warfare against an ag- 
gressor was evident in the large paramilitary training program. The 
emphasis on paramilitary training increased after the Soviet-led 
Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968 demonstrated 
potential weaknesses in Albania's plans to meet an attack by a large, 
well-trained aggressor force. 

In the late 1980s, even communist-controlled Albanian sources 
referred to serious problems with the attitudes of young people who 
were conscripted into the People's Army. They described social 
malaise, a growth in religious belief, increasing crime, and unwill- 
ingness to accept assignments to remote areas of the country. 
Moreover, the system of social discipline that had enforced obliga- 
tory military service under communist rule had completely disap- 
peared by January 1992. Poor food, changing living and working 
conditions, and low pay led to increasing dereliction of duty, ab- 
sence without leave, and desertion. More than 500 soldiers were 
among the thousands of Albanians who fled to Italy and Greece 
in 1991. The reduction in conscript service to eighteen months in 
1991 exacerbated the serious and growing problem of unemploy- 
ment among the male draft-age population. In early 1992, the 
problems of manning the People's Army continued to mount. 

Conscript Training 

Before 1961 military training relied on the Soviet model. Training 
manuals and materials were translated from Russian into Albanian. 
But even though China replaced the Soviet Union as Albania's for- 
eign patron, the Chinese apparently made few basic changes in 
Albania's military training programs. Most conscripts received con- 
siderable physical conditioning, drill, and other basic training in 
school and through the communist youth organization. This foun- 
dation allowed the military to move conscripts rapidly into tacti- 
cal combat training and small unit exercises. Tactical training 
typically involved preparation for fighting in defensive positions 
in the mountainous terrain characteristic of the country's interior. 
It emphasized physical conditioning, employment of light weapons, 
and the use of minimal amounts of materiel and other support. 
At least until 1991, the training program also devoted substantial 
time to political indoctrination conducted by political officers. 

Service within the naval forces traditionally has been a specialty, 
and many conscripts from Vlore or Durres were assigned to the 
naval forces because of their familiarity with small craft and navi- 
gation. As a result, they rarely served their term in the military 



224 



National Security 



out of sight of their homes, and because the level of naval deploy- 
ments and training was low, they remained available for part-time 
fishing or other work. 

In general, the frequent use of conscripts as laborers on economic 
projects has detracted from military training. They have often been 
used in the construction of factories, oil refineries, and hydroelec- 
tric plants; during harvests; and for land reclamation efforts. 

Paramilitary Training 

The experience of the resistance to the Italian and German oc- 
cupations during World War II, in which men, women, and chil- 
dren participated, provided the inspiration for an extensive program 
of paramilitary training for virtually all segments of the Albanian 
population. The program, which began at the end of the war, fo- 
cused on young people from the early 1950s on. Paramilitary train- 
ing developed to the point that many fifteen- to nineteen-year-old 
youths could be organized to fight as partisan forces or to operate 
as auxiliary units during a national emergency. Its main purpose 
was, however, to provide the armed forces with conscripts in good 
physical condition and with sufficient basic military training and 
knowledge to enter a military unit and perform satisfactorily with 
a minimum of adjustment. The academic year for secondary school 
and university students traditionally included one month and two 
months of full-time paramilitary training, respectively. Paramili- 
tary training did not exclude older Albanians, however. Until age 
fifty, men were obligated to spend twelve days per year in paramili- 
tary training. Women participated for seven days per year until 
age forty. 

Paramilitary training included extensive physical conditioning, 
close-order drill, hand-to-hand combat, small arms handling, demo- 
lition, and tactical exercises applicable to guerrilla operations. It 
was conducted in secondary schools by military officers assigned 
to them and also at military units to which the schools were at- 
tached for training purposes. Paramilitary programs of the com- 
munist youth organizations were similar to those conducted in the 
secondary schools. Albanian youths carrying rifles and machine 
guns marched in May Day parades. As many as 200,000 young 
people participated in paramilitary training each year. 

Military Schools 

Specialized military schools were essentially scaled-down copies 
of those in the Soviet Union. Three military schools trained officers 
for the People's Army or provided advanced professional training 
for mid-career officers. The Skanderbeg Military School was a 



225 



Albania: A Country Study 

secondary school that prepared students to enter the United Higher 
Officers' School. Students at Skanderbeg were generally sons of 
party, government, and military leaders. The United Higher 
Officers' School, formerly named for Enver Hoxha, was the ol- 
dest military education institution in the country. According to the 
APL, it began operating before German occupation forces left the 
country in 1944 and initiated a formal curriculum in 1945. Its 
graduates received a university degree and became commissioned 
officers. The Military Academy, once named for Mehmet Shehu, 
was an advanced institution offering training equivalent to that of 
command and staff schools or war colleges in Western military es- 
tablishments. It provided specialized officer courses for pilots and 
those serving in artillery units or aboard ship. 

Military Budget and the Economy 

Assessments of the impact of defense expenditures on Albania's 
economy traditionally have been hampered by the lack of govern- 
ment statistics on overall economic performance and the Albani- 
an economy's isolation from the international economy. Albania 
generally appropriated 1 billion leks (for value of the lek — see Glos- 
sary) per year for the military budget, or about 5 percent of an 
estimated late 1980 gross domestic product (GNP — see Glossary) 
of 20 billion leks. This figure was a relatively modest burden on 
the economy compared to that borne by other communist coun- 
tries. However, the absence of reliable statistics made it difficult 
to calculate this budget as a percentage of total government spend- 
ing, a common indicator of the priority accorded defense. It likely 
represented approximately 10 percent of government expenditures. 
However, some significant costs were probably hidden in nonmili- 
tary elements of the government budget, thus understating the 
defense effort as a portion of total spending. The low subsistence 
wages paid to conscripts also provided a downward bias. Given 
Albania's low standard of living, per capita military expenditures 
were high when compared with average family earnings, the bulk 
of which were required to obtain such basic necessities as food, cloth- 
ing, and housing. 

The Albanian Democratic Party has asserted that large defense 
expenditures during communist rule impoverished Albania. It cited 
annual drills for military reservists and live-fire exercises for in- 
fantry and artillery units as costing Albania 100 million leks, an 
amount equal to the yearly municipal budget for Tirane. Moreover, 
the new coalition government that took office in June 1991, in a 
move that probably indicated that the military budget had imposed 



226 



National Security 



a hardship on the civilian economy, announced an immediate 
20-percent reduction in defense spending. 

Internal Security 

During the period of uninterrupted communist rule from 1944 
to 1991, the pervasiveness of repression made it difficult for infor- 
mation on internal developments in Albania to reach the outside 
world. It was the most closed and isolated society in Europe. The 
few Western observers who visited the country after World War 
II were not in a position to see or to judge its internal conditions 
independently, but their statements concerning the police- state at- 
mosphere in the country indicated that public order was rigidly 
maintained. It was impossible for visitors to move around the coun- 
try without escorts, and conversation or interaction with ordinary 
citizens was inhibited. Local police and internal security forces were 
in evidence everywhere. Albanian sources published little concern- 
ing the internal security situation, and reliable information was 
lacking beyond infrequent officially approved statements and data 
that generally covered political crimes deemed threatening to the 
party or state. However, this situation began to change drastically 
in 1991, in part because of the efforts of the Albanian Democratic 
Party, which advocated restructuring the security organs and purg- 
ing officials who had repressed the population under Hoxha and 
Alia. In early 1992, officials responsible for preventing or inves- 
tigating crime were disorganized as a result of political changes 
in the country and were unsure how to operate effectively. Or- 
ganizational change in the police and security forces, initiated by 
the communist-dominated coalition government, also inhibited their 
effectiveness at least for a time. 

Domestic Repression under Hoxha and Alia 

Enver Hoxha was one of the last Stalinist leaders in Eastern Eu- 
rope and continued to employ Stalinist techniques for controlling 
the population long after most other East European countries had 
shifted from outright terror and repression to more subtle bureau- 
cratic-authoritarian methods. Western observers believed that 
no other communist country had as extensive a police and secu- 
rity organization relative to its size as the one that operated in 
Albania. 

Hoxha regarded the security police as an elite group, and it un- 
derpinned the power of the ACP and then the APL during the peri- 
od they dominated Albania's one-party political system. The secret 
police was instrumental in enabling Hoxha and the communist par- 
ty to consolidate power after 1944 by conducting a campaign of 



227 



Albania: A Country Study 

intimidation and terror against prewar politicians and rival groups. 
Persecution of these opponents in show trials on charges of trea- 
son, conspiracy, subversion, espionage, or anti-Albanian agitation 
and propaganda became common. From 1948 until the early 1960s, 
the Ministry of Internal Affairs was involved in the search for real 
or alleged Yugoslav agents or Titoists in Albania, and the minis- 
try itself was an initial battleground in the purge of Yugoslav in- 
fluence. Yugoslav control of the Ministry of Internal Affairs ran 
deep in the years immediately following World War II. Its chief, 
Koci Xoxe, was part of the pro- Yugoslav faction of the party and 
a rival to Hoxha. In 1949, however, he was arrested, convicted 
in a secret trial, and executed. 

Hoxha maintained a Stalinist political system even after the com- 
munist regimes in the Soviet Union and China had long since 
moderated their totalitarian or radical excesses. In the last years 
of Hoxha's life, the Directorate of State Security (Drejtorija e 
Sigurimit te Shtetit — Sigurimi), increased its political power, 
perhaps to the extent of supplanting party control. After Hoxha's 
death, the security forces viewed his successor, Ramiz Alia, and 
his modest reforms with suspicion. In the late 1980s, they report- 
edly supported a group of conservatives centered around Hoxha's 
widow, in opposition to Alia. 

Under Hoxha the communist regime essentially ignored inter- 
nationally recognized standards of human rights. According to a 
landmark Amnesty International report published in 1984, Alba- 
nia's human rights record was dismal under Hoxha. The regime 
denied its citizens freedom of expression, religion, movement, and 
association although the constitution of 1976 ostensibly guaranteed 
each of these rights. In fact, the constitution effectively circum- 
scribed the exercise of political liberties that the regime interpret- 
ed as contrary to the established socialist order. In addition, the 
regime tried to deny the population access to information other 
than that disseminated by the government-controlled media. The 
secret police routinely violated the privacy of persons, homes, and 
communications and made arbitrary arrests. The courts ensured 
that verdicts were rendered from the party's political perspective 
rather than affording due process to the accused, who were occa- 
sionally sentenced without even the formality of a trial. 

After Hoxha's death, Alia was apparently unable or unwilling 
to maintain the totalitarian system of terror, coercion, and repres- 
sion that Hoxha had employed to maintain his grip on the party 
and the country. Alia relaxed the most overt Stalinist controls over 
the population and instructed the internal security structure to use 
more subtie, bureaucratic- authoritarian mechanisms characteristic 



228 



National Security 



of the post-Stalin Soviet Union and East European regimes. He 
allowed greater contact with the outside world, including eased trav- 
el restrictions for Albanians, although the Sigurimi demanded bribes 
equivalent to six months' salary for the average Albanian to ob- 
tain the documents needed for a passport. More foreigners were 
allowed to visit Albania, and they reported a generally more relaxed 
atmosphere among the population as well as a less repressive politi- 
cal and antireligious climate. Official sources admitted that social 
discipline, especially among young Albanians, was breaking down 
in the late 1980s. The country's youth increasingly refused to accept 
and even openly rejected the values advanced under the official 
communist ideology. Moreover, small-scale rebellions were reported 
more frequently after Hoxha's death. Yet these developments did 
not alter the regime's exclusive hold on political power after the 
1980s. 

The dramatic collapse of communist rule in Eastern Europe in 
1989 apparently had a devastating effect on the internal social and 
political situation in Albania despite Alia's efforts to contain it. Mas- 
sive demonstrations against communist rule followed by liberali- 
zation and democratization in Eastern Europe began to affect 
Albania in 1990 . The power of the security police was successfully 
challenged by massive numbers of largely unorganized demonstra- 
tors demanding reforms and democratic elections. Unrest began 
with demonstrations in Shkoder in January 1990 that forced authori- 
ties to declare a state of emergency to quell the protests. Berat work- 
ers staged strikes protesting low wages in May. During July 1990, 
approximately 5,000 Albanians sought refuge on the grounds of 
foreign embassies in an effort to flee Albania. The security forces 
reportedly killed hundreds of asylum seekers either in the streets 
outside foreign compounds or after they were detained, but even 
such extreme measures did not stanch the unrest. 

In September 1990, Alia acceded to the requirements of the Con- 
ference on Security and Cooperation in Europe, committing Al- 
bania to respect the human rights and political freedoms embodied 
in the 1975 Helsinki Accords. When students organized demon- 
strations in December 1990, their demands for political pluralism 
received widespread support (see Further Moves Toward Democra- 
cy, ch. 4). Attempts by riot police to break up the demonstrations 
failed, and the party's Central Committee, in an extraordinary 
meeting called by Alia to discuss the growing unrest, decided not 
to use further force. The following year, the security forces were 
not in evidence at large political demonstrations and were unable 
to stop thousands of refugees from boarding ships bound for Italy 
or from crossing the border into Greece. However, the security 



229 



Albania: A Country Study 

forces attempted to maintain control by forcing the authorities to 
give the People's Army control over the ports of Vlore, Durres, 
Shengjin, and Sarande. The army was ordered to clear the ports 
of potential refugees and to establish a blockade around them. 

Penal Code 

Prior to the reforms of the early 1990s, a politically and ideo- 
logically oriented penal code facilitated systematic violations of hu- 
man rights and ensured the communist party control over all aspects 
of Albania's political, economic, and cultural life. Article 53 of the 
1982 code, for example, broadly defined sabotage as "activity or 
inactivity to weaken or undermine the operations of the state and 
the Albanian Party of Labor, the socialist economy, and the or- 
ganization and administration of the state and society" — a crime 
punishable by at least ten years' imprisonment or by death. The 
crime of "fascist, anti-democratic, religious, warmongering, and 
anti- socialist agitation and propaganda," as defined by Article 55, 
carried a penalty of three to ten years' imprisonment or, in war- 
time, not less than ten years' imprisonment or death. Article 47 
stipulated a penalty of not less than ten years or death for "flight 
from the state" or for "refusal to return to the fatherland." The 
penal code listed a total of thirty-four offenses punishable by death, 
of which twelve were political and eleven were military. Although 
individuals accused of criminal behavior theoretically had the right 
to present a defense, they could not avail themselves of the ser- 
vices of a professional attorney; the private practice of law in Al- 
bania had been banned in 1967. 

In 1990, following serious and widespread public unrest, steps 
were taken to liberalize the penal code. The number of offenses 
punishable by death was reduced from thirty-four to eleven, women 
were exempted from the death penalty, the maximum prison sen- 
tence for "anti- socialist agitation and propaganda" was reduced 
from twenty-five to ten years, the maximum prison sentence for 
attempts to leave the country illegally also was reduced from twenty- 
five to ten years, the legal status of lawyers was restored, and the 
official ban on religious activity was abolished. 

Penal System 

The communist regime maintained an extensive system of prisons 
and labor camps, including six institutions for political prisoners, 
nine for nonpolitical prisoners, and fourteen where political pris- 
oners served their sentences together with regular criminals. In- 
mates provided the state's vital mining industry with an inexpensive 



230 



National Security 



source of labor. In 1985 there were an estimated 32,000 prisoners 
in the country. 

Conditions in the prisons and labor camps were abysmal. 
Maltreatment as well as physical and mental torture of political 
prisoners and other prisoners of conscience were common. Sporadic 
strikes and rebellions in the labor camps, to which the Sigurimi 
often responded with military force, resulted in the death of more 
than 1,000 prisoners as well as the execution of many survivors 
after they were suppressed. 

Many political prisoners were purged party officials and their 
relatives. Reflecting Hoxha's paranoia, some of them were resen- 
tenced without trial for allegedly participating in political conspira- 
cies while in prison. Former inmates reported that they managed 
to survive their incarceration only through the assistance of rela- 
tives who brought them food and money. 

Under Alia, several amnesties resulted in the release of nearly 
20 percent of the large prison and labor-camp population, although 
most of those released were prisoners over the age of sixty who had 
already served long terms. In 1991 , for example, the APL attempted 
to improve its popularity by pushing a sweeping amnesty law for 
political prisoners through the communist-dominated People's As- 
sembly, and all such prisoners were freed by the middle of the year. 
The amnesty law provided for the rehabilitation of those incarcer- 
ated for political crimes, but not persons convicted of terrorist acts 
that resulted in deaths or other serious consequences. Specifically, 
it applied to persons sentenced for agitation and propaganda against 
the state; participation in illegal political organizations, meetings, 
or demonstrations; failure to report crimes against the state; slan- 
dering or insulting the state; and absence without leave or deser- 
tion from military service. It provided for material compensation, 
including lost wages or pensions, for time spent in prison; for 
preferential access to housing, education, and employment; and 
gave compensatory damages to the families of political prisoners 
who were executed or who died in detention without trial. Final- 
ly, it established a commission that included members of the new, 
independent Association of Former Political Prisoners to investigate 
atrocities carried out by the state. 

Security Forces 

Until April 1991 , all security and police forces were responsible to 
the Ministry of Internal Affairs, which also exercised authority over 
the judicial system and the implementation and enforcement of the 
country's laws. In January 1991, the minister of internal affairs, 
Simon Stefani, held both high communist party and government 



231 



Albania: A Country Study 



posts as a member of the Politburo and as one of three deputy prime 
ministers. 

Each security or police organization — the Sigurimi, the Frontier 
Guards, and the People's Police — constituted a separate directorate 
within the ministry-; each had a larger proportion of personnel who 
were party members than did the armed forces because of the need 
for political reliability. In the Sigurimi, for example, nearly all serv- 
ing personnel were believed to be party members. In the Frontier 
Guards and People's Police, all officers and many other personnel 
were party members. 

The Sigurimi were the security police forces. Organized to pro- 
tect the party and government system, these forces were responsi- 
ble for suppressing deviation from communist ideology and for 
investigating serious crimes on a national scale. Frontier Guards, 
as their name implied, maintained the security of state borders. 
The People's Police were the local or municipal police. 

In April 1991 , shortly after the country's first free elections, the 
communist-dominated People's Assembly abolished the Ministry 
of Internal Affairs. It was replaced by a new Ministry of Public 
Order with authority over the People's Police. In addition, the chair- 
man of a new National Security Committee within the Council of 
Ministers was given control over the Sigurimi. Both organizations, 
however, were headed by the same officials who had directed them 
within the old Ministry- of Internal Affairs. 

In July 1991, the communist-dominated legislature abolished the 
Sigurimi and established a new National Information Service (NIS) 
in its place. It was unclear to Western observers to what extent 
the new organization would be different from its much-hated 
predecessor because at least some of its personnel probably had 
served in the Sigurimi. Only former Sigurimi leaders were excluded 
from the new NIS. Opponents of the Sigurimi argued that former 
officers should not be rehired but replaced with new, untainted 
government employees. The officers, however, argued that the new 
organization needed experienced investigators who had not vio- 
lated existing laws or abused their power as Sigurimi officers. 

The NIS's stated mission was to enforce the constitution and 
laws of .Albania and the civil rights of its citizens. It was forbidden 
to conduct unauthorized investigations, and it was required to 
respect the rights of citizens in every case except instances in which 
the constitution itself had been violated. Political activities within 
the NIS were banned. 

In 1991 the rate of reported homicides doubled and robberies 
tripled over the similar period in 1990. Instances of illegal posses- 
sion and use of firearms were reported. The increase in violent crime 



232 



Albanian riot police maintaining order as 
refuge- seekers return from Italy 
Courtesy Charles Sudetic 

was viewed so seriously that some citizens believed that social anar- 
chy was overwhelming the state's ability to handle it. The end of 
the party's monopoly on political power and the curbing of the coer- 
cive power of the state's law enforcement mechanism gave many 
common criminals courage to act. The minister of public order 
cited a general breakdown in law enforcement and public safety 
in Albania in 1991 . He reported that many crimes were being com- 
mitted by unemployed individuals, common criminals inadvertentiy 
released from prison under political amnesties, and citizens tak- 
ing revenge on officials of the former communist regime. He blamed 
many problems of the police on their former cooperation with the 
Sigurimi in its role of protecting the party and state against the 
citizens. According to the minister, the police would be depoliti- 
cized, and patriotic, legal, and professional training would replace 
members' former political indoctrination. 

When the People's Assembly established the Ministry of Public 
Order, it placed the Frontier Guards and the Directorate of Prison 
Administration, both of which had been in the Ministry of Internal 
Affairs, in the Ministry of People's Defense and the Ministry of 
Justice, respectively. Shortly thereafter, in an effort to stem the flow 
of Albanian refugees and growing problems with drug trafficking 



233 



Albania: A Country Study 

through Albanian territory, Italy signed a cooperation agreement 
with Albania under which it would help train and equip the 
demoralized police and Frontier Guards. Albania sought similar 
assistance from Finland and Romania and applied to join the In- 
ternational Police Organization (Interpol). The head of the Direc- 
torate of Prison Administration pledged to improve physical 
conditions in Albania's prisons, to terminate routine detention of 
minors with adults, and to introduce corrective, educational, and 
recreational programs. 

The Directorate of Law and Order, the Directorate of Criminal 
Police, and the Directorate of Forces for the Restoration of Order — 
the latter presumably being special riot control units — remained 
under the control of the Ministry of Public Order. In defense of 
his decision not to reorganize, the minister of public order cited 
difficulties in attempting to restructure the police force when crime 
was increasing rapidly. He also noted that planned cutbacks would 
reduce police personnel by 30 percent. Many Albanians, however, 
blamed years of communist dictatorship and poverty for allowing 
economic conditions to deteriorate to the point where the system 
was collapsing in a crime wave and local disorder. Some citizens 
believed that they needed the right to carry arms as protection 
against increasing violent crime and social anarchy. 

Directorate of State Security 

The Directorate of State Security, or Sigurimi, which was 
abolished in July 1991 and replaced by the NIS, celebrated March 
20, 1943, as its founding day. Hoxha typically credited the Sigu- 
rimi as having been instrumental in his faction's gaining power 
in Albania over other partisan groups. The People's Defense Di- 
vision, formed in 1945 from Hoxha' s most reliable resistance fight- 
ers, was the precursor to the Sigurimi 's 5,000 uniformed internal 
security force. In 1989 the division was organized into five regi- 
ments of mechanized infantry that could be ordered to quell domes- 
tic disturbances posing a threat to the party leadership. The Sigurimi 
had an estimated 10,000 officers, approximately 2,500 of whom 
were assigned to the People's Army. It was organized with both 
a national headquarters and district headquarters in each of Alba- 
nia's twenty-six districts. 

The mission of the Sigurimi, and presumably its successor, was 
to prevent revolution and to suppress opposition to the regime. 
Although groups of Albanian emigres sought Western support for 
their efforts to overthrow the communists in the late 1940s and early 
1950s, they quickly ceased to be a credible threat to the communist 
regime because of the effectiveness of the Sigurimi. 



234 



National Security 



The activities of the Sigurimi were directed more toward politi- 
cal and ideological opposition than crimes against persons or 
property, unless the latter were sufficiently serious and widespread 
to threaten the regime. Its activities permeated Albanian society 
to the extent that every third citizen had either served time in labor 
camps or been interrogated by Sigurimi officers. Sigurimi person- 
nel were generally career volunteers, recommended by loyal party 
members and subjected to careful political and psychological screen- 
ing before they were selected to join the service. They had an elite 
status and enjoyed many privileges designed to maintain their relia- 
bility and dedication to the party. 

The Sigurimi was organized into sections covering political con- 
trol, censorship, public records, prison camps, internal security 
troops, physical security, counterespionage, and foreign intelligence. 
The political control section's primary function was monitoring the 
ideological correctness of party members and other citizens. It was 
responsible for purging the party, government, military, and its 
own apparatus of individuals closely associated with Yugoslavia, 
the Soviet Union, or China after Albania broke from successive 
alliances with each of those countries. One estimate indicated that 
at least 170 communist party Politburo or Central Committee mem- 
bers were executed as a result of the Sigurimi 's investigations. The 
political control section was also involved in an extensive program 
of monitoring private telephone conversations. The censorship sec- 
tion operated within the press, radio, newspapers, and other com- 
munications media as well as within cultural societies, schools, and 
other organizations. The public records section administered 
government documents and statistics, primarily social and economic 
statistics that were handled as state secrets. The prison camps sec- 
tion was charged with the political reeducation of inmates and the 
evaluation of the degree to which they posed a danger to society. 
Local police supplied guards for fourteen prison camps through- 
out the country. The physical security section provided guards for 
important party and government officials and installations. The 
counterespionage section was responsible for neutralizing foreign 
intelligence operations in Albania as well as for monitoring domestic 
movements and parties opposed to Albania's communist party. Fi- 
nally, the foreign intelligence section maintained personnel abroad 
and at home to obtain intelligence about foreign capabilities and 
intentions that affected Albania's national security. Its officers oc- 
cupied cover positions in Albania's foreign diplomatic missions, 
trade offices, and cultural centers. 

In early 1992, information on the organization, responsibilities, 
and functions of the NIS was not available in Western publications. 



235 



Albania: A Country Study 

Some Western observers believed, however, that many of the 
officers and leaders of the NIS had served in the Sigurimi and that 
the basic structures of the two organizations were similar. 

Frontier Guards 

In 1989 the Frontier Guards included about 7,000 troops or- 
ganized into battalion-sized formations. Although organized stricdy 
along military lines, the Frontier Guards were subordinate to the 
Ministry of Internal Affairs until its abolition in April 1991 when 
they were subordinated to the Ministry of People's Defense. The 
mission of the Frontier Guards was to protect state borders and 
to prevent criminals, smugglers, or other infiltrators from cross- 
ing them. In the process, they were also charged with stopping Al- 
banians from leaving the country illegally. They were effective in 
enforcing its closed borders, although some Albanians still managed 
to escape. During the period of Albania's greatest isolation from 
its neighbors, the lack of open border crossing points simplified 
border control. For example, in 1985 Albania opened its first border 
crossing point with Greece, fourteen years after it had reestablished 
diplomatic relations with Athens. In 1990, however the Frontier 
Guards were increasingly less able to prevent illegal crossings by 
well-armed citizens, who frequently sought refuge in Greece and 
Yugoslavia. 

Personnel for the Frontier Guards generally came from the an- 
nual conscription process for military service, but the organiza- 
tion also had career personnel. The Frontier Guards training school 
was established in 1953 in Tirane, and its students, as well as con- 
scripted Frontier Guards, were carefully screened to ensure their 
political reliability. 

People's Police 

In 1989, the People's Police had five branches: the Police for 
Economic Objectives, Communications Police, Fire Police, De- 
tention Police, and General Police. The Police for Economic Ob- 
jectives served as a guard force for state buildings, factories, 
construction projects, and similar enterprises. The Communica- 
tions Police guarded Albania's lines of communication, including 
bridges, railroads, and the telephone and telegraph network. Fire- 
fighting was also considered a police function and was carried out 
by the Fire Police. The Detention Police served as prison and labor 
camp guards. Finally, the General Police corresponded to the lo- 
cal or municipal police in other countries and attended to traffic 
regulation and criminal investigations. 



236 



On the outskirts of Tiran 'e, a shepherd uses a bunker to oversee his flock. 

Courtesy Fred Conrad 

Although the functions of the General Police overlapped with 
those of the security police to some extent, the General Police oper- 
ated at the local rather than the national level. However, the head- 
quarters of the General Police in larger towns had internal security 
sections that coordinated their activities with those of the security 
police. They maintained records on political dissidents, Albani- 
ans living outside their home districts, and foreign visitors and resi- 
dent aliens. They also monitored the identification cards that 
Albanian citizens were required to carry. These cards, which con- 
tained family and employment information and were required for 
travel between cities and villages, constituted an effective control 
over the movement of the population. 

Service in the People's Police was usually a three-year obliga- 
tion, and individuals who had previously served in the armed ser- 
vices were preferred. After 1989, however, detailed information 
on the operations, staffing, and training of the People's Police was 
generally not known outside of Albania. 

Auxiliary Police 

All able-bodied men were required by a 1948 law to spend two 
months assisting the local police. They served with the People's Po- 
lice in their localities, wearing police uniforms that were distinguished 



237 



Albania: A Country Study 

by a red armband. The Auxiliary Police provided additional man- 
power for the regular police and also gave a large segment of the 
population familiarity with, and presumably a more sympathetic 
understanding of, police activities and problems. 

In early 1992, the police and internal security forces were los- 
ing the tight control they once held over the population. They, and 
the regime they supported, were beginning to yield to the impact 
of the popular, revolutionary forces had that toppled the other com- 
munist regimes in Eastern Europe in late 1989 and 1990. Although 
poorer, more isolated, and more repressed than the peoples of the 
other East European communist countries, Albanians were begin- 
ning to assert their civil and human rights. 

* * * 

Up-to-date English-language sources on Albania's armed forces 
and its internal security apparatus are scarce because until 1991 
Albania was the most isolated and secretive state in Eastern Eu- 
rope and in-depth research on these subjects was inhibited. Alba- 
nia's print and broadcast media provided little information on the 
country's defense capabilities or policies and even less on its inter- 
nal security forces. The History of Albania, from its Origins to the Present 
Day, by Stefanaq Polio and Arben Puto, and The Encyclopedia of 
Military History, by R. Ernest Dupuy and Trevor Dupuy, present 
historical perspectives on Albania's national security evolution. 
Klaus Lange's "Albanian Security Policies: Concepts, Meaning, 
and Realisation," is the best, and perhaps only, scholarly article 
exclusively dedicated to Albania's national security. F. Stephen Lar- 
rabee and Daniel Nelson address Albania's historical and strategic 
relationships with its neighbors in the Balkans, and Yugoslavia in 
particular. Elez Biberaj's Albania: A Socialist Maverick provides a valu- 
able description of the political fortunes of party officials in the na- 
tional security apparatus and the impact of the party's changing 
foreign policies on national security. 

The Foreign Broadcast Information Service (FBIS) translations 
of broadcasts from the official Albanian news agency as well as trans- 
lations of Yugoslav and Greek broadcasts have been good sources 
on internal security developments, especially since 1990. FBIS trans- 
lations of Yugoslav publications on the military and domestic un- 
rest in Albania are worthwhile and probably generally accurate 
despite Yugoslavia's interest in portraying Albania in an unfavora- 
ble light. Louis Zanga, who writes on Albania in Report on Eastern 
Europe for Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, occasionally discusses 
internal security matters. The Military Balance, published annually 



238 



National Security 

by the International Institute for Strategic Studies, also provides 
information on the changing organizational structure, size, and 
equipment of the armed forces over time. (For further informa- 
tion and complete citations, see Bibliography.) 



239 



Appendix 



Table 

1 Metric Conversion Coefficients and Factors 

2 Population of Largest Cities and Towns, 1987 

3 Structure of Realized Net Material Product by Sector, Selected 

Years, 1938-83 

4 Key Economic Indicators, 1961-88 

5 Net Material Product by Branch of Origin, 1986, 1988, and 

1990 

6 Structure of Work Force by Sector, Selected Years, 1960-87 

7 Primary Agricultural Output, Selected Years, 1979-88 

8 Structure of Industry, Selected Years, 1950-88 

9 Output of Main Industrial Products, 1980, 1985, and 1988 

10 Production of Energy and Mineral Ores, Selected Years, 

1980-88 

11 Major Trading Partners, 1982-87 

12 Major Imports, Selected Years, 1970-88 

13 Major Exports, Selected Years, 1970-88 



241 



Appendix 



Table 1. Metric Conversion Coefficients and Factors 



When you know 


Multiply by 


To find 




0.04 


inches 




0.39 


inches 


Meters 


3.3 


feet 




0.62 


miles 


Hectares (10,000 m 2 ) 


2.47 


acres 




0.39 


square miles 




35.3 


cubic feet 




0.26 


gallons 




... , 2.2 


pounds 




0.98 


long tons 




1.1 


short tons 




2,204 


pounds 




1.8 


degrees Fahrenheit 


(Centigrade) 


and add 32 





Table 2. Population of Largest Cities and Towns, 1987 



City or Town 



Population 



City or Town 



Population 



Tirane' 
Durres 
Elbasan 
Shkoder 
Vlore . 
Korce . 



226,000 
78,700 
78,300 
76,300 
67,700 
61,500 



Berat 

Fier 

Lushnje . . 
Kavaje . . . 
Gjirokaster 
Kucove . . 



40,500 
40,300 
26,900 
24,200 
23,800 
20,600 



Source: Based on information from Vjetari Statistikor i R.P.S. T 'e Shqip 'eris'e, 1988 (Statistical 
Yearbook of the People's Socialist Republic of Albania, 1988), Tirane, 1988, 26-28. 



Table 3. Structure of Realized Net Material 
Product by Sector, Selected Years, 1938-83 
(in percentages, using 1981 prices) * 



Sector 1938 1950 1960 1970 1980 1983 



Agriculture 93.1 73.2 37.6 34.2 32.7 34.1 

Industry 3.8 7.0 18.6 28.2 43.6 43.3 

Construction 0.8 3.1 6.5 7.1 6.7 7.8 

Services 2.3 16.7 37.3 30.5 17.0 14.8 



TOTAL 100.0 100.0 100.0 100.0 100.0 100.0 



* Net material product — see Glossary. 

Source: Based on information from Economist Intelligence Unit, Country Profile: Bulgaria, 
Albania, 1990-91, London, 1990, 37. 



243 



Albania: A Country Study 



Table 4. Key Economic Indicators, 1961-88 
(in percentage average annual increase) 





1961-70 


1971-80 


1981-88 




7.4 


4.6 


1.7 2 






5.4 


2.2 2 




4.4 


2.2 


- 0.3 




9.8 


7.5 


2.8 




1.5 


1.8 


1.3 




6.0 


3.8 


1.5 




1.0 


- 0.2 


- 2.0 




9.0 


6.7 


0.8 




8.4 


4.9 


1.5 




5.7 


4.6 


3.4 



1 Net material product — see Glossary. 

2 Estimated. 



3 Labor productivity is defined as gross production per employee. 

+ Domestic transportation by road, rail, and sea as measured in ton-kilometers. 

5 At current prices. 

Sources: Based on information from Per Sandstrom and Orjan Sjoberg, "Albanian Eco- 
nomic Performance: Stagnation in the 1980s," Soviet Studies [Glasgow], 43, No. 
5, 1991, 937. 



Table 5. Net Material Product by Branch of Origin, 
1986, 1988, and 1990 
(in millions of leks) * 



Branch of Origin 


1986 


1988 


1990 




20,128 


20,821 


20,033 




8,828 


8,376 


8,591 




2,861 


2,851 


2,820 




971 


991 


904 




892 


848 


788 




727 


720 


777 


Other 


355 


348 


365 


TOTAL 


34,762 


34,955 


34,278 



* For value of the lek — see Glossary. 



Source: Based on information from Anders Aslund and Orjan Sjoberg, "Privatization and 
Transition to a Market Economy in Albania," Communist Economics and Economic 
Transformation [Abingdon, United Kingdom], 4, No. 1, 1992, 137. 



244 



Appendix 



Table 6. Structure of Work Force by Sector, 
Selected Years, 1960-87 
(in percentages) 



Sector 


1960 


1970 


1980 


1985 


1987 




55.6 


52.2 


51.4 


51.3 


52.0 




15.1 


19.2 


21.8 


22.3 


22.9 




11.4 


9.9 


9.1 


8.0 


7.1 


Transportation and communications . . 


2.0 


2.3 


2.5 


2.9 


2.9 




5.9 


5.9 


4.8 


4.8 


4.6 




3.4 


4.7 


4.6 


4.5 


4.4 


Health 


2.7 


2.6 


3.0 


2.8 


2.9 


Other 


3.9 


3.2 


2.8 


3.4 


3.2 


TOTAL 


100.0 


100.0 


100.0 


100.0 


100.0 



Source: Based on information from Vjetari Statistikor i R.P.S. T 'e Shqiperiss, 1988 (Statistical 
Yearbook of the People's Socialist Republic of Albania, 1988), Tirane, 1988, 69. 



Table 7. Primary Agricultural Output, Selected Years, 1979-88 
(in thousands of tons) 



Product 


1979-81 1 


1985 


1987 


1988 


Wheat 


492 


530 


565 


589 




318 


400 


320 


306 


All cereals 


916 


1,055 


1,010 


1,024 




112 


136 


135 


137 


Meat 2 


52 


54 


55 


56 




, , , , 193 


186 


188 


188 




44 


47 


48 


48 




156 


193 


210 


216 




298 


320 


360 


360 


Milk 


326 


342 


346 


347 


Eggs 


10 


13.2 


13.2 


14 



1 Annual averages. 

2 Beef, mutton, and pork. 



Source: Based on information from Economist Intelligence Unit, Country Profile: Bulgaria, 
Albania, 1990-91, London, 1990, 40. 



245 



Albania: A Country Study 



Table 8. Structure of Industry, 
Selected Years, 1950-88 
(in percentages) 



x roduct 


1950 


1960 


1970 


1980 


1985 


1988 


T? J 


si 1 


'to. J 


3V. <t 


ZJ.O 


nc o 
ZJ. 3 


L'x. 1 


Oil 




15.5 


14.9 


9.2 


5.7 


5.2 


Light industry 


7.8 


21.6 


19.9 


15.5 


16.3 


16.2 




7 


1 1 


Q O 
o.U 


D.o 


D.o 


^ 1 


Building materials 


3 3 


4.7 


5.6 


7.9 


6.3 


5.8 




3.1 


2.9 


7.6 


12.5 


14.7 


14.5 




. . : ; 2.2 


0.8 


5.2 


6.4 


7.6 


8.8 


Chromite 


2.1 


2.0 


1.3 


1.7 


1.7 


2.0 




1.6 


0.8 


0.9 


0.8 


0.7 


0.7 


Coal 


1.4 


1.6 


1.5 


1.3 


1.7 


1.7 


Electric power 


0.5 


1.1 


2.0 


3.6 


2.9 


3.1 




0.3 


0.6 


3.3 


4.7 


5.5 


5.9 


Glass and ceramies 




0.2 


0.6 


0.8 


0.8 


0.9 






1.3 


2.2 


3.0 


3.4 


3.8 


Other 


1.5 


0.2 


0.3 


1.1 


1.2 


1.5 


TOTAL * 


100.0 


100.0 


100.0 


100.0 


100.0 


100.0 



— means negligible, 
n.a. — not available. 

* Figures may not add to 100 percent because of rounding or because of unverified information in 



source. 

Source: Based on information from Vjetari Statistikor i R.P.S. T'e Shqiperis'e, 1988 (Statistical 
Yearbook of the People's Socialist Republic of Albania, 1988), Tirane, 1988, 82. 



246 



Appendix 



Table 9. Output of Main Industrial Products, 
1980, 1985, and 1988 
(in thousands of tons unless otherwise indicated) 



Product 


1980 


1985 


1988 


Electric power (in millions 










3,717 


3,147 


3,984 




9.8 


11 


15 




5.7 


9.4 


116 




12.2 


11.9 


38.7 




173 


250 


291 




96 


107 


96 




150 


157 


165 




109 


95 


96 


Urea 


88 


78 


77 




72 


73 


81 




25 


29 


31 




23 


22 


22 


Machinery and equipment (in 










350 


465 


496 




:\ ;.'v.. 327 


407 


493 




826 


642 


746 


Bricks and tiles (in 










294 


295 


319 


Refractory bricks (in 










4.8 


28 


30 


Heavy cloth (in 










12.5 


12.3 


11.3 


Knitwear (in millions of 










9.8 


11 


12.1 


Footwear (in thousands of 










4,735 


4,800 


5,396 


Television receivers (in 








thousands) 


21 


21.3 


16.5 


Radio receivers (in 










8 


16 


25 


Cigarettes (in millions 










4,950 


5,348 


5,310 


Soap and detergent 


14.7 


18.2 


21.5 



* For value of the lek — see Glossary 



Source: Based on information from The Europa World Year Book, 1991, 1, London, 1991, 301. 



247 



Albania: A Country Study 



Table 10. Production of Energy and Mineral Ores, 
Selected Years, 1980-88 
(in thousands of tons unless otherwise indicated) 



Product 1980 1984 1985 1986 1987 1988 



Energy 

Coal 1,418 2,010 2,100 2,230 2,130 2,184 

Crude oil 1,900 * 1,300 * 1,200 * 1,400 * 1,200 1,200 * 

Electricity (in giga- 

watt-hours) ... 3,717 3,800 3,147 5,070 4,200 * 3,984 

Ores 

Chromite 1,004 960 1,111 1,207 1,080 1,109 

Copper 769 1,007 989 1,024 1,160 1,087 

Ferronickel 597 1,080 905 n.a. 970 1,067 



n.a. — not available. 
* Estimated. 

Sources: Based on information from Per Sandstrom and Orjan Sjoberg, "Albanian Economic 
Performance: Stagnation in the 1980s," Soviet Studies [Glasgow], 43, No. 5, 1991, 941. 



Table 11. Major Trading Partners, 1982-87 
(in millions of United States dollars) 



Country 


1982 


1983 


1984 


1985 


1986 


1987 


Imports 
















74 


50 


43 


42 


46 


37 * 


Italy 


42 


28 


27 


15 


9 


26 




23 


n.a. 


n.a. 


n.a. 


n.a. 


n.a. 




19 


27 


20 


22 


23 * 


25 * 




17 


17 


15 


13 


21 


16 




16 


8 


12 


15 


7 


6 


Poland 


15 


15 


11 


12 * 


12 * 


13 * 




13 


18 


10 


3 


56 


14* 




12 


9 


8 


10 


11 


13 * 




4 


7 


2 


6 


13 


19 * 




3 


4 


3 


4 


4 


2 






n.a. 


2 


n.a. 


n.a. 


n.a. 


Exports 
















74 


38 


46 


41 


47 


49 




36 


22 


14 


16 


18 


16 


Italy 


32 


27 


22 


20 


21 


34 




27 


30 


25 


27 


28 * 


31 * 




23 


n.a. 


n.a. 


n.a. 


n.a. 


n.a. 


Poland 


18 


18 


12 


13 * 


14 * 


15 * 




17 


4 


9 


12 


5 


3 




12 


8 


7 


9 


6 


4 * 




11 


10 


8 


10 


14 


13 



248 



Appendix 



Table 11. — Continued 



Country 1982 1983 1984 1985 1986 1987 



Exports (continued) 





9 


15 


28 


17 


6 


8 




8 


5 


6 


7 


4 


4 


China 


n.a. 


4 


3 


10 


9 


15 



n.a. — not available. 
* Estimated. 



Source: Based on information from Economist Intelligence Unit, Country Profile: Bulgaria, 
Albania, 1990-91, London, 1990, 47; and International Monetary Fund, Direction 
of Trade Statistics, Washington, n.d. 



Table 12. Major Imports, Selected Years, 1970-88 
(in percentages) 



Product 


1970 


1975 


1980 


1985 


1988 




32.8 


45.2 


21.7 


25.1 


31.5 




7.2 


3.8 


2.5 


5.3 


4.8 




21.6 


21.4 


35.8 


27.0 


23.1 




9.4 


8.3 


14.9 


14.1 


12.7 




1.8 


0.9 


2.6 


1.4 


0.1 




14.7 


11.3 


13.5 


12.8 


13.5 




3.4 


5.0 


4.0 


8.3 


8.1 




7.7 


4.1 


5.0 


6.0 


6.2 


TOTAL * 


100.0 


100.0 


100.0 


100.0 


100.0 



* Figures may not add to total because of rounding. 



Source: Based on information from Gramoz Pashko, "The Albanian Economy at the 
Beginning of the 1990s," in Orjan Sjoberg and Michael L. Wyzan (eds.), Economic 
Change in the Balkan States: Albania, Bulgaria, Romania, and Yugoslavia, London, 1991, 
137. 



249 



Albania: A Country Study 



Table 13. Major Exports, Selected Years, 1970-88 
(in percentages) 



Product 


1970 


1975 


1980 


1985 


1988 


Fuels 


27.4 


25.7 


29.0 


15.1 


7.9 


Electric power 


n.a. 


2.9 


9.1 


7.8 


7.3 




31.1 


26.9 


24.5 


31.5 


39.8 


Chemicals 


1.2 


0.3 


1.2 


0.7 


0.8 




0.1 


0.7 


1.5 


1.0 


1.5 


Nonedible agricultural products .... 


13.1 


9.4 


10.4 


14.6 


16.1 




15.1 


15.5 


8.4 


10.8 


8.7 




4.4 


6.3 


5.4 


8.1 


8.2 


Consumer goods 


7.6 


12.3 


10.5 


10.7 


9.7 


TOTAL * 


100.0 


100.0 


100.0 


100.0 


100.0 



n.a. — not available. 

* Figures may not add to total because of rounding. 



Source: Based on information from Gramoz Pashko, "The Albanian Economy at the 
Beginning of the 1990s," in Orjan Sjoberg and Michael L. Wyzan (eds.), Economic 
Change in the Balkan States: Albania, Bulgaria, Romania, and Yugoslavia, London, 1991, 
137. 



250 



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Chapter 3 

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255 



Albania: A Country Study 



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Albania: A Country Study 

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Wildermuth, Andreas. Die Krise der albanischen Landwirtschaft. 
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Chapter 4 

Artisien, Patrick F.R. "Albania after Hoxha," SAIS Review, 6, 
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Biberaj, Elez. Albania: A Socialist Maverick. Boulder, Colorado: West- 
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Kosovo: The Balkan Powder Keg. London: Research Insti- 
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Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe. Report on the 
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Logoreci, Anton. The Albanians: Europe's Forgotten Survivors. Boul- 
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Marmullaku, Ramadan. Albania and the Albanians . Hamden, New 
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Myrdal, Jan, and Gun Kessle. Albania Defiant. New York: Monthly 
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Prifti, Peter R. Socialist Albania since 1944. Cambridge: MIT Press, 
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Staar, Richard F. "People's Socialist Republic of Albania." Pages 
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259 



Albania: A Country Study 



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RFE/RL Research Report [Munich], 1, No. 21, May 22, 1992, 
11-17. 

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16, April 20, 1990, 1-3. 

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8, February 22, 1991, 1-4. 



Chapter 5 

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The Encyclopedia of Military History (Eds., R. Ernest Dupuy and 
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"A Principle Turned Upside Down — On a Proposal for the Draft 

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261 



Albania: A Country Study 

"Eleven Years Lost in Albanian Prisons, Svenska Dagbladet [Stock- 
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Origins to the Present Day. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 

1981. 

Zanga, Louis. "Increase in Crime and Other Social Problems," 
Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, Report on Eastern Europe, 2, 
No. 39, September 27, 1991, 1-4. 

"Military Undergoes Reforms," Radio Free Europe/Ra- 
dio Liberty, Report on Eastern Europe, 2, No. 46, November 15, 
1991, 1-3. 

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7, 1991, 1-5. 

"Sigurimi Dissolved and Replaced," Radio Free Eu- 
rope/Radio Liberty, Report on Eastern Europe, 2, No. 35, August 
30, 1991, 19-21. 



262 



Glossary 



bajrak — A political union of Geg clans under a single head, the baj- 
raktar (q.v.). Term literally means "standard" or "banner." 

bajraktar — The hereditary leader of a bajrak (q.v.). Term literally 
means "standard bearer." 

Bektashi — An order of dervishes of the Shia branch of the Muslim 
faith founded, according to tradition, by Hajji Bektash Wali 
of Khorasan, in present-day Iran, in the thirteenth century and 
given definitive form by Balim, a sultan of the Ottoman Em- 
pire in the sixteenth century. Bektashis continue to exist in the 
Balkans, primarily in Albania, where their chief monastery is 
at Tirane. 

bey — Ruler of a province under the Ottoman Empire. 

caliph — Title of honor adopted by the Ottoman sultans in the six- 
teenth century, after Sultan Selim I conquered Syria and Pales- 
tine, made Egypt a satellite of the Ottoman Empire, and was 
recognized as guardian of the holy cities of Mecca and Medi- 
na. Term literally means "successor"; in this context, the suc- 
cessor of the Prophet Muhammad. 

Comecon (Council for Mutual Economic Assistance) — A multilater- 
al economic alliance headquartered in Moscow. Albania was 
effectively expelled from Comecon in 1962 after the rift in re- 
lations between Moscow and Tirane. Members in 1989 were 
Bulgaria, Cuba, Czechoslovakia, the German Democratic Re- 
public (East Germany), Hungary, Mongolia, Poland, Ro- 
mania, the Soviet Union, and Vietnam. Comecon was created 
in 1949, ostensibly to promote economic development of mem- 
ber states through cooperation and specialization, but actually 
to enforce Soviet economic domination of Eastern Europe and 
to provide a counterweight to the Marshall Plan. Also referred 
to as CEMA or CMEA. 

Cominform (Communist Information Bureau) — An internation- 
al organization of communist parties, founded and controlled 
by the Soviet Union in 1947 and dissolved in 1956. The Comin- 
form published propaganda touting international communist 
solidarity but was primarily a tool of Soviet foreign policy. The 
Communist Party of Yugoslavia was expelled in June 1948. 

Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe (CSCE) — 
Furthers European security through diplomacy, based on 
respect for human rights, and a wide variety of policies and 
commitments of its more than fifty Atlantic, European, and 



263 



Albania: A Country Study 



Asian member countries. Founded in August 1975, in Helsinki, 
when thirty-five nations signed the Final Act, a politically bind- 
ing declaratory understanding of the democratic principles 
governing relations among nations, which is better known as 
the Helsinki Accords (q. v.). 
Constantinople — Originally a Greek city, Byzantium, it was made 
the capital of the Byzantine Empire by Constantine the Great 
and was soon renamed Constantinople in his honor. The city 
was captured by the Turks in 1453 and became the capital of 
the Ottoman Empire. The Turks called the city Istanbul, but 
most of the non-Muslim world knew it as Constantinople un- 
til about 1930. 

cult of personality — A term coined by Nikita S. Khrushchev at the 
Twentieth Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet 
Union in 1956 to describe the rule of Joseph V. Stalin, during 
which the Soviet people were compelled to deify the dictator. 
Other communist leaders, particularly Albania's Enver Hox- 
ha, followed Stalin's example and established a cult of person- 
ality around themselves. 

democratic centralism — A Leninist doctrine requiring discussion 
of issues until a decision is reached by the party. After a deci- 
sion is made, discussion concerns only planning and execution. 
This method of decision making directed lower bodies uncon- 
ditionally to implement the decisions of higher bodies. 

European Community (EC) — The EC comprises three commu- 
nities: the European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC), the 
European Economic Community (EEC, also known as the 
Common Market), and the European Atomic Energy Com- 
munity (Euratom). Each community is a legally distinct body, 
but since 1967 they have shared common governing institu- 
tions. The EC forms more than a framework for free trade and 
economic cooperation: the signatories to the treaties govern- 
ing the communities have agreed in principle to integrate their 
economies and ultimately to form a political union. Belgium, 
France, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, and the Federal 
Republic of Germany (then West Germany) are charter mem- 
bers of the EC. Britain, Denmark, and Ireland joined on Janu- 
ary 1, 1973; Greece became a member on January 1, 1981; 
and Portugal and Spain entered on January 1, 1986. In late 
1991, Czechoslovakia, Hungary and Poland applied for mem- 
bership. 

European Currency Unit (ECU)— Instituted in 1979, the ECU is the 
unit of account of the EC (q. v.). The value of the ECU is deter- 
mined by the value of a basket that includes the currencies of 



264 



Glossary 



all EC member states. In establishing the value of the basket, 
each member's currency receives a share that reflects the rela- 
tive strength and importance of the member's economy. In 1987 
one ECU was equivalent to about one United States dollar. 
European Economic Community (EEC) — See European Com- 
munity. 

GDP (gross domestic product) — A measure of the total value of 
goods and services produced by the domestic economy during 
a given period, usually one year. Obtained by adding the value 
contributed by each sector of the economy in the form of profits, 
compensation to employees, and depreciation (consumption of 
capital). Only domestic production is included, not income aris- 
ing from investments and possessions owned abroad, hence the 
use of the word domestic to distinguish GDP from- gross nation- 
al product (GNP— q.v.). Real GDP is the value of GDP when 
inflation has been taken into account. 

glasnost' — Public discussion of issues; accessibility of information 
so that the public can become familiar with it and discuss it. 
The policy in the Soviet Union in the mid- to late 1980's of 
using the media to make information available on some con- 
troversial issues, in order to provoke public discussion, challenge 
government and party bureaucrats, and mobilize greater sup- 
port for the policy of perestroika (q.v.). 

GNP — (gross national product) — GDP (q.v.) plus the net income 
or loss stemming from transactions with foreign countries. GNP 
is the broadest measurement of the output of goods and serv- 
ices by an economy. It can be calculated at market prices, which 
include indirect taxes and subsidies. Because indirect taxes and 
subsidies are only transfer payments, GNP is often calculated 
at a factor cost, removing indirect taxes and subsidies. 

Helsinki Accords — Signed in August by all the countries of Eu- 
rope (except Albania) plus Canada and the United States at 
the conclusion of the first meeting of the Conference on Secu- 
rity and Cooperation in Europe, the Helsinki Accords endorsed 
general principles of international behavior and measures to 
enhance security and addressed selected economic, environ- 
mental, and humanitarian issues. In essence, the Helsinki 
Accords confirmed existing, post- World War II national bound- 
aries and obligated signatories to respect basic principles of hu- 
man rights. Helsinki Watch groups were formed in 1976 to 
monitor compliance. The term Helsinki Accords is the short 
form for the Final Act of the Conference on Security and 
Cooperation in Europe and is also known as the Final Act. 

International Monetary Fund (IMF) — Established along with the 



265 



Albania: A Country Study 



World Bank (q.v.) in 1945, the IMF has regulatory surveillance, 
and financial functions that apply to its more than 1 50 mem- 
ber countries and is responsible for stabilizing international ex- 
change rates and payments. Its main function is to provide loans 
to its members (including industrialized and developing coun- 
tries) when they experience balance of payments difficulties. 
These loans frequently have conditions that require substan- 
tial internal economic adjustments by recipients, most of which 
are developing countries. Albania joined the IMF in October 
1991. 

janissaries — Soldiers, usually of non-Turkish origin, who belonged 
to an elite infantry corps of the Ottoman army. Formed a self- 
regulating guild, administered by a council of elected unit com- 
manders. From the Turkish yenigeri; literally, new troops. 

Kosovo — A province of the Serbian Republic of Yugoslavia that 
shares a border with Albania and has a population that is about 
90 percent Albanian. Serbian nationalists fiercely resist Alba- 
nian control of Kosovo, citing Kosovo's history as the center 
of a medieval Serbian Kingdom that ended in a defeat by the 
Ottoman Turks at the Battle of Kosovo Polje in 1389. Resi- 
dents of Kosovo are known as Kosovars. 

lek (L) — Albanian national currency unit consisting of 100 qin- 
tars. In early 1991, the official exchange rate was L6.75 to 
US$1; in September 1991, it was L25 = US$1; and in March 
1993, the exchange rate was LI 09. 62 = US$1. 

machine tractor stations — State organizations that owned the major 
equipment needed by farmers and obtained the agricultural 
products from collectivized farms. First developed in the Soviet 
Union and adopted by Albania during the regime of Enver 
Hoxha. 

Marxism- Leninism/Marxist- Leninist — The ideology of commu- 
nism, developed by Karl Marx and refined and adapted to so- 
cial and economic conditions in Russia by Lenin, which guid- 
ed the communist parties of many countries including Albania 
and the Soviet Union. Marx talked of the establishment of the 
dictatorship of the proletariat after the overthrow of the bour- 
geoisie as a transitional socialist phase before the achievement 
of communism. Lenin added the idea of a communist party 
as the vanguard or leading force in promoting the proletarian 
revolution and building communism. Stalin and subsequent 
East European leaders, including Enver Hoxha, contributed 
their own interpretations of the ideology. 

most-favored-nation status — Under the provisions of the General 
Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), when one country 



266 



Glossary 



accords another most-favored-nation status it agrees to extend 
to that country the same trade concessions, e.g., lower tariffs 
or reduced nontariff barriers, which it grants to any other recip- 
ients having most-favored-nation status. In June 1992, Albania 
received most-favored-nation status from the United States. 

net material product — The official measure of the value of goods 
and services produced in Albania, and in other countries hav- 
ing a planned economy, during a given period, usually a year. 
It approximates the term gross national product (GNP — q. v. ) 
used by economists in the United States and in other coun- 
tries having a market economy. The measure, developed in 
the Soviet Union, was based on constant prices, which do not 
fully account for inflation, and excluded depreciation. 

Ottoman Empire — Formed in the thirteenth and fourteenth cen- 
turies when Osman I, a Muslim prince, and his successors, 
known in the West as Ottomans, took over the Byzantine ter- 
ritories of western Anatolia and southeastern Europe and con- 
quered the eastern Anatolian Turkmen principalities. The 
Ottoman Empire disintegrated at the end of World War I; the 
center was reorganized as the Republic of Turkey, and the out- 
lying provinces became separate states. 

pasha — Title of honor held by members of the Muslim ruling class 
in the Ottoman Empire. 

perestroika — Literally, restructuring. Mikhail S. Gorbachev's cam- 
paign in the Soviet Union in the mid- to late 1980s to revital- 
ize the economy, party, and society by adjusting economic, 
political, and social mechanisms. Announced at the Twenty- 
Seventh Party Congress in August 1986. 

Shia (from Shiat Ali, the Party of Ali) — A member of the smaller 
of the two great divisions of Islam. The Shia supported the 
claims of Ali and his line to presumptive right to the caliphate 
and leadership of the Muslim community, and on this issue 
they divided from the Sunni (q. v.) in the first great schism with- 
in Islam. In 1944, when the communists assumed power in 
Albania, about 25 percent of the country's Muslims belonged 
to an offshoot of the Shia branch known as Bektashi (q.v.). 

Stalinism/Stalinist — The authoritarian practices, including mass 
terror, and bureaucratic applications of the principles of 
Marxism- Leninism (q. v. ) in the Soviet Union under Joseph 
V. Stalin and in East European communist countries. 

Sublime Porte (or Porte) — The palace entrance that provided ac- 
cess to the chief minister of the Ottoman Empire, who represent- 
ed the government and the sultan (q.v.). Term came to mean 
the Ottoman government. 



267 



Albania: A Country Study 

sultan — The supreme ruler of the Ottoman Empire. Officially called 
the padishah (Persian for high king or emperor), the sultan was 
at the apex of the empire's political, military, judicial, social, 
and religious hierarchy. 

Sunni (from Sunna, meaning "custom," having connotations of 
orthodoxy in theory and practice) — A member of the larger 
of the two great divisions within Islam. The Sunnis supported 
the traditional (consensual) method of election to the caliphate 
and accepted the Umayyad line. On this issue, they divided 
from the Shia (q.v.) in the first great schism within Islam. In 
1944, when the communists assumed power in Albania, about 
75 percent of the country's Muslims were Sunnis. 

Titoist — A follower of the political, economic, and social policies 
associated with Josip Broz Tito, Yugoslav prime minister from 
1943 and later president until his death in 1980, whose nation- 
alistic policies and practices were independent of and often in 
opposition to those of the Soviet Union. 

Treaty of San Stefano — A treaty signed by Russia and the Otto- 
man Empire on March 3, 1878, concluding the Russo-Turkish 
War of 1877-78. If implemented, would have greatiy reduced 
Ottoman holdings in Europe and created a large, independent 
Bulgarian state under Russian protection. Assigned Albanian- 
populated lands to Serbia, Montenegro, and Bulgaria. Substan- 
tially revised at Congress of Berlin, after strong opposition from 
Great Britain and Austria-Hungary. 

Uniate Church — Any Eastern Christian church that recognizes the 
supremacy of the pope but preserves the Eastern Rite. Mem- 
bers of the Albanian Uniate Church are concentrated in Sicily 
and southern Italy, and are descendants of Orthodox Albani- 
ans who fled the Ottoman invasions, particularly after the death 
of Skanderbeg in 1468. 

Warsaw Treaty Organization — Formal name for Warsaw Pact. 
Political-military alliance founded by the Soviet Union in 1955 
as a counterweight to the North Adantic Treaty Organization. 
Albania, an original member, stopped participating in War- 
saw Pact activities in 1962 and withdrew in 1968. Members 
in 1991 included Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, East Germany, 
Hungary, Poland, Romania, and the Soviet Union. Before it 
was formally dissolved in April 1991, the Warsaw Pact served 
as the Soviet Union's primary mechanism for keeping politi- 
cal and military control over Eastern Europe. 

World Bank — Name used to designate a group of four affiliated 
international institutions that provide advice on long-term fi- 
nance and policy issues to developing countries: the International 



268 



Glossary 



Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD), the Inter- 
national Development Association (IDA), the International 
Finance Corporation (IFC), and the Multilateral Investment 
Guarantee Agency (MIGA). The IBRD, established in 1945, 
has the primary purpose of providing loans to developing coun- 
tries for productive projects. The IDA, a legally separate loan 
fund administered by the staff of the IBRD, was set up in 1960 
to furnish credits to the poorest developing countries on much 
easier terms than those of conventional IBRD loans. The IFC, 
founded in 1956, supplements the activities of the IBRD 
through loans and assistance designed specifically to encourage 
the growth of productive private enterprises in less developed 
countries. The president and certain senior officers of the IBRD 
hold the same positions in the IFC. The MIGA, which began 
operating in June 1988, insures private foreign investment in 
developing countries against such non-commercial risks as ex- 
propriation, civil strife, and inconvertibility. The four institu- 
tions are owned by the governments of the countries that 
subscribe their capital. To participate in the World Bank group, 
member states must first belong to the IMF (q.v.). 

Young Turks — A Turkish revolutionary nationalist reform party, 
officially known as the Committee of Union and Progress 
(CUP), whose leaders led a rebellion against the Ottoman sul- 
tan and effectively ruled the Ottoman Empire from 1 908 until 
shortly before World War I. 

Yugoslavia — Established in 1918 as the Kingdom of the Serbs, 
Croats, and Slovenes. The kingdom included the territory of 
present-day Bosnia and Hercegovina, Macedonia, Montenegro, 
Serbia, Croatia, and Slovenia. Between 1929 and 1945, the 
country was called the kingdom of Yugoslavia (land of the South 
Slavs). In 1945 Yugoslavia became a federation of six repub- 
lics under the leadership of Josip Broz Tito. In 1991 Yugosla- 
via broke apart because of long-standing internal disputes 
among its republics and weak central government. The seces- 
sion of Croatia and Slovenia in mid- 1991 led to a bloody war 
between Serbia and Croatia. In the fall of 1991, Bosnia and 
Hercegovina and Macedonia also seceded from the federation, 
leaving Serbia (with its provinces, Kosovo and Vojvodina) and 
Montenegro as the constituent parts of the federation. Under 
the leadership of President Slobodan Milosevic, however, Serbia 
retained substantial territorial claims in Bosnia and Hercego- 
vina and Croatia at the beginning of 1992. 



269 



Index 



Abdul Hamid II (sultan), 19, 20 
abortion, 82, 96 
Ada Air, 152 

ADP. See Albanian Democratic Party 
Agip, 143 

Agrarian Party, 188; in coalition govern- 
ment, 190 

Agrarian Reform Law (1945), 40, 85, 
107, 173 

agricultural: cooperatives, 117; develop- 
ment, 30; organization, 134-36; re- 
form, 40, 107-8, 134 

agricultural production, 112; under five- 
year plans, 109, 110, 115; impact of 
drought on, 115; under privatization, 
136; shortfalls, 137 

agricultural products (see also under in- 
dividual crops): fruit, 103; marketing 
structure for, 136-37; tree crops, 133; 
vegetables, 103 

agriculture (see also under farms), 133-40; 
collectivization in, 44, 49, 78, 80, 108, 
112, 113, 115, 133; control of, 110; de- 
centralized, 116; fertilizers for, 138; 
feudal, 106; importance of, 103; mech- 
anization of, 138; neglect of, 107; as 
percentage of net material product, 
103; pesticides for, 139; privatization 
in, xxxvi, 118, 136; seeds for, 139; sub- 
sistence, 26, 106; women in, 82, 132; 
work force in, 103, 130 

Ahmeti, Vilson, xxxvi 

air force, 221-22; aircraft of, 221-22; 
bases, 221; creation of, 221; materiel, 
222; missions of, 221; personnel 
strength of, 221 

airports, 152; privatization of, 120 

air transportation, 152 

Albania, People's Socialist Republic of, 
174 

Academy of Sciences, 45 
Albanian Commercial Bank, 123 
Albanian Communist Party (see also Al- 
banian Party of Labor; Socialist Party 
of Albania), 172, 175, 203; established, 
35; pro-Yugoslav faction in, 210; resis- 
tance by, to Italian occupation, 208-9; 
women in, 80 



Albanian Communist Party Secretariat, 176 

Albanian Democratic Party (ADP), xxxv; 
activities of, 187; call for reforms, 218, 
226; in coalition government, 190; in 
elections of 1991, 188; formed, 186, 
187; membership of, 187 

Albanian Democratic Party government, 
xxxvi, xxxvii, 118 

Albanian language, 70; alphabet for, 19, 
20, 71, 88; derivation of, 71; dialects 
of, 71; influences on, 71; as language 
of education, 19; legalized, 20; pro- 
scribed, 19, 71, 87-88 

Albanian National Bank: founded, 30 

Albanian Orthodox Church, 27, 75; clergy 
of, purged, 85; number members of, 82 

Albanian Party of Labor (APL) (see also 
Albanian Communist Party; Socialist 
Party of Albania), xxxv, 174, 175; in 
armed forces, 217; economic policies of, 
104; membership in, 217 

Albanians, ethnic, 214-15; arrival of, in 
Balkans, 8; deported from Greece, 
xxxviii; emigration by, xxxv, 12; in 
Kosovo, 22, 58, 69-70, 194, 206, 
214-15; in Macedonia, xxxvii, 22, 69, 
206; in Montenegro, 69, 206; percent- 
tage of, in population, 66; resistance by, 
to Ottoman rule, 10, 20 

Alfonso I (king), 12 

Algeria: trade with, 164 

Alia, Ramiz, xxxv, 47; attempts to dis- 
credit, 190; background, 209; economy 
under, 115; meeting of, with students, 
185; military career of, 216; opposition 
of Sigurimi to, 228; as president, 188; 
resignation of, 191; as successor to 
Hoxha, 52, 174; visit of, to United Na- 
tions, 199-200 

Alia government, 174-75; armed forces 
under, 204; reforms under, 171, 190, 
192, 204, 213, 228-29; repression un- 
der, 228-29 

Ali Pasha of Tepelene, 15; assassinated, 
15 

All-Union Lenin Communist Youth League 

(Komsomol), 180 
American Agricultural School, 90 



271 



Albania: A Country Study 



American Junior Red Cross: schools run 
by, 90 

American Red Cross: hospitals and 

schools run by, 27 
American Vocational School, 90 
Amnesty International, 184, 228 
Anti-Fascist Council of National Libera- 
tion, 36 

APL. See Albanian Party of Labor 

armed forces, 219-23, 230; administra- 
tive divisions of, 216; Chinese influence 
on, 220; command structure of, 216; 
conscription in, 207, 219; under con- 
stitution of 1976, 216; development of, 
204-6; in Greek civil war, 209-10; 
materiel of, 209; medical service of, 
217; missions of, 219; organization of, 
219; origins of, 203; personnel strength 
of, 207, 219; political control in, 
217-19; political indoctrination, 212, 
217; political officers in, 217; problems 
in, 214; purges of, 218; ranks of, 218; 
ranks of, abolished, 49, 217-18; re- 
forms of, 49, 189, 204, 218; Soviet in- 
fluence on, 220; training, 209; uniforms 
of, 218; uniforms, abolished, 217-18; 
Yugoslavia's influence over, 209; un- 
der Zogu, 207 

army (People's Army), 220-21; assistance 
for, 203; commander in chief, 215-16; 
foreign influences in, 31; materiel, 
220-21; number of troops in, 203, 220; 
organization of, 220; pressure from, for 
reform, 182; problems in, 220-21; 
Sigurimi in, 234 

Association of Former Political Prisoners, 
231 

austerity program, 49 
Austria-Hungary: occupation by, 23 
autarky, 5%, 114-18; implemented, 114 
Auxiliary Police, 237-38; mission of, 238; 

service in, 237 
Avars: arrival of, in Balkans, 8 

balance of payments, 160, 162 
balance of trade, 162 
Balkan Confederation of Communist Par- 
ties, 34 

Balkan Foreign Ministers Conference, 

195, 196, 213 
Balkan War, First (1912-13), 4, 16, 21, 

206 



Balkan War, Second (1913), 4, 206 
Balli Kombetar (National Union), 35 
Balluku, Beqir, 218 
Balsha family, 10 

Bank for Agricultural Development, 123- 
24 

banking system, 122-24; nationalization 
of, 78; reform of, 123; two-tiered, 123 

barbarians, 3; invasions by, 7-8 

Bashkimi, 186 

Beqeja, Hamit, 183 

Berisha, Sali, 187; as president, xxxvi- 
xxxvii, 191 

beys, 76, 84; power of, 14-15; revolts by, 
9 

birth control, 96 
Bismarck, Otto von, 18 
Bitola: under Ottoman rule, 16 
Bjeshket e Namuna. See North Albanian 
Alps 

black market, 120, 123, 158, 160 
border problems: with Greece, 18; with 

Yugoslavia, 215 
borders, 57-59; established, 58-59 
Bosnia and Hercegovina, xxxvii 
Britain: materiel from, 33; military train- 
ing provided by, 207; plans of, to over- 
throw communists, 43-44; relations 
with, 43-44, 192 
budget deficit, 122, 124; as percentage of 
gross domestic product, 122; reduced, 
xxxvi 
Bufi, Ylli, 190 

Bufi government, 190; collapse of, xxxv 

Bulatovic, Momir, xxviii 

Bulgaria, 214; emigration to, 16; lands 
ceded to, 17; occupation by, 23; rela- 
tions with, xxxviii, 198; trade with, 
162, 163 

Bulgarians: geographic distribution of, 69 
Bulgars, 205; arrival of, in Balkans, 8 
Bune River, 59, 63 
bunkers, 115 

bureaucracy: reform of, 49 
Bushati, Ibrahim, 15 
Bushati, Kara Mahmud, 15 
Bushati, Mustafa Pasha, 15, 16 
Bushati family, 15 
Byzantine Empire, 205 
Byzantines, 8 

Cami, Foto, 186 



272 



Index 



Qarcani, Adil, 174, 179, 196 

Catholic Church, Roman: clergy purged, 

86; as mediator, 26 
Catholics, Roman: ethnic distribution of, 

75; number of, 82 
Ceau§escu, Nicolae, 198 
censorship, 182 

Central Committee, 176; plenums of, 
116, 117, 177, 183, 185, 186; privileges 
of, 79; reforms by, 116-17 

Qermenike, 60 

Charles I of Anjou, 9 

chemical industry, 146-47; production, 
147 

Chevron, 143 

children: custody of, 80 

China, People's Republic of: dependence 
on, 111-14, 203, 210, 211; economic 
assistance from, xxxv, 4, 47, 48, 104, 
111, 193; military assistance from, 
203-4, 211, 212, 220; reduction of aid 
from, 114, 156, 193-94, 213; relations 
of, with Soviet Union, 47; relations 
with, 46-49, 50, 105, 193, 199; tech- 
nical assistance from, 48; trade with, 
114 

Christianity (see also under individual denomi- 
nations), 82-84; arrival of, 7; introduc- 
tion of, 82; schism in, 82; secret practice 
of, 13, 84-85, 86-87 

chromite, 31, 103, 140, 144-46; export 
of, 144-46, 164; income from, 114, 
115; problems with, 144; production, 
144 

civil war, 33, 36 

clans, 14, 57, 75; blood feuds of, 31, 68, 
75, 76; under communists, 67; repres- 
sion of, 50 

clergy: under communist rule, 78; living 
conditions of, 77; purged, 85-86 

climate, 64-65, 103; precipitation, 65; 
regions, 65; temperature, 65; weather 
patterns, 64-65 

Clitus, 5 

clothing: prices of, 129; subsidies for, 129 
coal, 140; deposits, 142; mines, 143 
Code of Lek, 14, 76 
Cold War, 209 

Comecon. See Council for Mutual Eco- 
nomic Assistance 

Cominform. See Communist Information 
Bureau 

Comintern. See Communist International 



Committee for the Salvation of Albania: 
formed, 35 

Committee of Union and Progress. See 
Young Turks 

communications, 150, 151, 155; privati- 
zation in, 120; work force in, 130 

Communist Information Bureau (Comin- 
form): Albania excluded from, 42; Yu- 
goslavia expelled from, 40, 109, 192, 
210 

Communist International (Comintern), 
34 

communist party. See Albanian Commu- 
nist Party; Albanian Party of Labor; 
Socialist Party of Albania 

communist party congresses, 42, 44, 48, 
52, 176, 190, 193; average age in, 176; 
women in, 176 

Communist Party of the Soviet Union 
(CPSU): party congresses of, 48 

Communist Party of Yugoslavia, 34 

communists, 34-36; acquisition of pow- 
er by, 4; clans under, 67; in coalition 
government, 190; consolidation of pow- 
er by, 38-40, 209; democratic central- 
ism under, 176; economy under, 39, 
122; education under, 91-94; organi- 
zation of, 175-76; plans to overthrow, 
43-44; power shift under, 39; purges 
by, 38; reforms by, 38-40; reforms of, 
176-77; social structure under, 77-82; 
takeover of government by, 36-38 

Comnenus, Alexius I, 8 

Comnenus, Michael, 9 

Conference on Security and Cooperation 
in Europe, 51; desire to join, 184, 229; 
membership in, 214 

Congress of Berlin: Prizren League memo- 
randum to, 18 

Constantine the Great, 7 

constitution of 1946: adopted, 39; divorce 
under, 80; marriage under, 80 

constitution of 1976, 173; adopted, 52; 
armed forces under, 216; communist 
party under, 176; human rights under, 
228 

constitution, draft interim, 186-87 
construction, 149-50; housing, 96, 149, 

150; work force in, 130 
consumer cooperatives, 107 
consumer goods: durable, 129; imports 

of, 165; lack of, 127-28, 156; prices of, 

129 



273 



Albania: A Country Study 



consumption, 128 

Conventional Forces in Europe Treaty 
(1990), 214 

copper, 32, 140, 146; export of, 164; in- 
come from, 114 

corruption: in customs, 160; in secret 
police, 229 

Costa Rica: trade with, 164 

Council for Mutual Economic Assistance 
(Comecon): boycott of, 194; division of 
labor of, 110; membership in, 44, 192, 
197 

Council of Ministers, 178-79; economic 
decision makers in, 118-20; head of, 
179; members of, 178; mission of, 
178-79, 189 

courts, 179; military, 217 

CPSU. See Communist Party of the Soviet 
Union 

Craxi, Bettino, 196 

crime, 232-33 

Croatia: relations with, xxxviii 

Croats: arrival of, in Balkans, 8 

Cuba: trade with, 163 

Cultural and Ideological Revolution, 
49-50, 112, 173; inefficiency of, 113; 
religion under, 86; resistance to, 113; 
women under, 132 

currency, xxxvi, 124; devaluation of, 124; 
exchange, 124; exchange rate, 124; 
problems with, 104; reform, 108, 118; 
shortage of foreign, 197; speculation in, 
122-23; unbacked, 124 

current accounts: deficit, 162; as percen- 
tage of gross domestic product, 162 

Czechoslovakia: relations with, 198; So- 
viet invasion of, 193, 212, 224; trade 
agreement with, 44; trade with, 162, 
163 



debt: external, 160 

Decree on Religious Communities (1949), 
85 

Defense Council, 216 
defense organization, 215-27 
defense spending: reductions in, 227 
Democratic Front, 39, 180 
Denimex, 142 

de-Stalinization: opposition to, 46, 193, 
210 

developing countries: trade with, 164 



devshirme, 12 
diet, 96, 129 
Dimitrov, Georgi, 41 
Diocletian, 7 

Directorate of Criminal Police, 234 
Directorate of Forces for the Restoration 

of Order, 234 
Directorate of Law and Order, 234 
Directorate of Prison Administration, 

233, 234 

Directorate of State Security (Drejtorija 
e Sigurimit te Shtetit — Sigurimi), 184, 
227, 232, 234-36; activities of, 235; 
bribes demanded by, 229; dissolved, 
190, 204, 232, 234; mission of, 232, 
235; personnel in, 234, 235; opposition 
of, to Alia, 228; organization of, 232, 
235; People's Defense Division, 234; 
pressure from, for reform, 182 

divorce, 76; laws regulating, 80; rate, 80 

Djilas, Milovan, 42 

drainage, 63-64; projects, 103 

Drejtorija e Sigurimit te Shtetit. See Direc- 
torate of State Security 

Drini Engineering Works, 147 

Drini i Bardhe River, 63 

Drini i Zi, 63 

Drin River, 64 

drought, 115, 117, 143, 183 

drug trafficking, 233 

Durres: naval base, 222; port of, 152, 
230; shipyards, 147; urban dwellers in, 
74 

Dusan, Stefan, 9 



East Germany. See German Democratic 
Republic 

East-West Seminar on Military Doc- 
trines, 219 
Ecology Party, 188 

economic: activity, 116; development, 
111; performance, 105-18; planning 
{see alse under individual five-year plans), 
108; policy, 105-18; statistics, 105 
economic austerity program, 111 
economic enterprises, 121-22; under 
communists, 121; management of, 121; 
privatization of, 118; under recovery 
program, 122; steering councils for, 
121-22 

Economic Planning Commission, 39, 108 



274 



Index 



economic reform, xxxv, 112, 116; under 
coalition government, 118; program 
for, 122; prospects for, 166-67; 
resistance to, 117; "shock therapy" 
program for, xxxvi 
economic system, 1 18-26; changes in, 175 
economic system, Stalinist, xxxv, 103, 
107-8; adjustments to, 112; collapse 
of, 104, 105, 115, 118; decentralized, 
112; implemented, 44, 109; reforms of, 
116 

economy: centralized, xxxv, 173; under 
communists, 39; control over, by Ita- 
ly, 105; control over, by Yugoslavia, 
41-42; decentralized, 117, 175; impact 
of China on, 114; impact of Soviet 
Union on, 49; planned, 39; reform of, 
49, 104, 171; under Zog, 32 

education {see also schools), 87-94; adult, 
93; under communists, 45, 91-94; 
elementary, 92; languages for, 19, 87- 
88; literacy, 92; objectives of, 91-92; 
postsecondary, 90-91; program of, 92- 
93; rates of, 27; reform of, 49; re- 
strictions on, 173; secondary, 92, 93; 
subsidies for, 129; women working in, 
132; work force in, 130 

Education Reform Law (1946), 92 

education system: development of, 90; 
elementary, 88; Italian control of, 91; 
reorganization of, 90, 93 

Egypt: emigration to, 12, 16; trade with, 
164 

Eibasan, 74 

Elbasan Steel Combine, 146, 150 
elections: of 1991, xxxv, 177, 186, 188; 

of 1992, xxxvi 
electoral system, 178; reform of, 185 
electric power: blackouts, 144; capacity, 
143; development of, 103, 116; export 
of, 164; under five-year plans, 109, 
116; generation, 103, 115, 142, 143; in- 
come from, 114; privatization of, 120; 
in rural areas, 144; shortages of, 117; 
stations, 113; transmission, 143 
elite class: living conditions of, 77 
emigration: destinations for, xxxv, 12, 16, 
117, 187, 190-91; to escape Ottoman 
empire, 16; to escape revolution of 
1991, 103, 117, 187, 190-91, 229, 233 
employment reform, 112 
energy resources, 140-46 
engineering, 147 



Enver Hoxha Auto and Tractor Plant, 
147 

Enver Hoxha University, 45; founded, 92 
environmental problems, 150 
Epirus, Despotate of, 9 
Epirus, Northern, 213; dispute over, 
xxxviii 

ethnic groups (see also under individual 

groups), 66-68 
Europe: integration with, xxxvii; relations 

with, 43-44; trade with, 114 
Europe, Eastern: assistance from, 111; 

exports to, 144; revolutions of 1989 in, 

185, 229 

European Community (EC), 121, 140, 
167; assistance from, 166 

European Currency Unit, 124 

Eximbank. See Export-Import Bank of the 
United States 

Export-Import Bank of the United States 
(Eximbank), 164 

exports {see also under individual products): 
of agricultural products, 133; decline 
in, 162; of electric power, 143; increase 
in, xxxvi, 114; to West, 114 



families: authority in, 76; importance of, 
76; size of, 75 

farms, collective, 108, 113, 134 

farms, private: average size of, 135 

farms, state, 134; food processing under, 
149; organization of, 135-36; work 
force on, 135-36 

Federal Republic of Germany. See Ger- 
many, Federal Republic of 

Finland: assistance from, 234 

Fischer, Oskar, 198 

fishing, 139-40 

Fishta, Gjergj, 27 

five-year plans: First (1951-55), 44, 
109-10; Second (1956-60), 110; Third 
(1961-64), 48, 74, 1 1 1 ; Fourth (1966- 
70), 113; Fifth (1971-75), 114; Seventh 
(1981-85), 115; Eighth (1986-90), 
116, 137 

flag, 9 

food: aid, 167; distribution system, 158; 
household spending on, 133; as percent- 
age of trade, 158; production, 115; 
shortages, 156, 158, 167, 175 

food processing, 148-49; privatization in, 



275 



Albania: A Country Study 



xxxvi, 148; production, 148-49; qual- 
ity of, 148; workers in, 148 

foreign assistance, 166; from China, xxxv, 
4, 47, 48, 104, 111, 193, 203-4, 211, 
212, 220; European Community, 166; 
from Finland, 234; from Germany, 96, 
197; from Greece, 166; humanitarian, 
104; from Italy, 94, 96, 104, 166, 234; 
problems in pursuing, 197-98; reliance 
on, 57; from Romania, 234; from the 
Soviet Union, xxxv, 4, 45, 46, 47, 104, 
109, 110, 111, 203, 210, 220, 224; from 
Switzerland, 96; from Turkey, 166; 
from the United States, 96, 108, 166; 
volume of, 166; from Yugoslavia, xxxv, 
4, 33, 41, 104, 203, 212 
foreign companies: activities of, 165 
foreign debt: increase in, 104, 117 
foreign investment: in energy, 142; in in- 
dustry, 104 
foreign policy, 191-200; under Berisha, 

xxxvii; under Hoxha, 191-92, 194 
foreign relations: with Bosnia and Her- 
cegovina, xxxvii; with Britain, 43-44, 
192; with Bulgaria, xxxviii, 198; with 
China, 46-49, 50, 105, 193, 199; with 
Croatia, xxxviii; with Czechoslovakia, 
198; with East Germany, 198; econom- 
ic, 159-67; with Greece, xxxviii, 50, 
175, 193, 194-95, 196, 213; with Ita- 
ly, xxxviii, 175, 194-95, 196-97; with 
Macedonia, xxxvii; with Romania, 
xxxviii, 198, 212; with Slovenia, 
xxxviii; with the Soviet Union, 44-46, 
198, 199, 211, 214; with Turkey, 

xxxvii, 175, 194, 196, 213; with the 
United States, 43-44, 192, 198-99, 
214; with the West, 192, 195; with 
West Germany, 197; with Yugoslavia, 
50, 175, 192, 193, 195, 213 

forestry: privatization of, 120 

forests, 139; destruction of, 139; nation- 
alized, 40, 107, 173 

France: occupation by, 58; trade negoti- 
ations with, 50; trade with, 162 

Frasheri, Abdul, 17; exiled, 19 

Frasheri, Mehdi, 32 

Frasheri, Midhat, 35 

Frasheri, Nairn, 19 

Frasheri, Sami, 19 

Frontier Guards, 204, 232, 233, 236; 
mission of, 232, 236; organization of, 
236 



Garibaldi International Brigade, 34 
gas, natural, 140; production, 143; re- 
serves, 142, 143 
GDP. See gross domestic product 
Gegs (highlanders), 9, 14; characteristics 
of, 68; under Hoxha, 67; marriage tra- 
ditions of, 76; percentage of, in popu- 
lation, 66; political power of, 39; 
religion of, 75; tribal society of, 77; 
women, 68 
Gendarmerie: formed, 207; mission of, 

207; organization of, 207 
Gentius (king), 6 
Geraldine Apponyi (queen), 33 
German Democratic Republic (East Ger- 
many): relations with, 198; trade with, 
163 

Germany: investment from, 165; occupa- 
tion by, 36, 91, 209 

Germany, Federal Republic of (West 
Germany): diplomatic relations with, 
197; economic assistance from, 96, 197; 
trade with, 144, 162, 163-64, 197 

Gjoni, Xhelil, 190 

glasnost', 183 

Glaucius (king), 5 

Godo, Sabri, 187 

Gorbachev, Mikhail S., xxxv, 190 

Goths: arrival of, in Balkans, 8 

government: apparatus, 178-79; borrow- 
ing, 30; interwar, 28; local, 125; 
revenues, 124-25; spending, 124-25, 
226; trade monopoly, 159 

government, coalition (1991-92), 118, 
177, 189-91; military under, 226-27 

Government Party, 28 

Great Powers: partition by, 21, 23, 192, 
206-7; as protectors, 21, 23 

Greece, 214; Albanians deported from, 
xxxviii; assistance from, 166; attempts 
by, to appropriate land, 16, 37, 47, 
207; border with, 58, 211; border 
problems with, 18; civil war in, 43, 210; 
economic relations with, 195; emigra- 
tion to, xxxv, 12, 117, 187, 224, 229; 
ferry service to, 196; investment from, 
165; Italian attempt to invade, 33; oc- 
cupation by, 23, 58, 192; problems 
with, 211; relations with, xxxviii, 50, 
175, 193, 194-95, 196, 213; support by, 
for revolts, 23; suppression of Albani- 
an culture by, 19, 20; trade agreement 
with, 31 



276 



Index 



Greek language, 71; as language of edu- 
cation, 88 

Greeks, 68-69; internal exile of, 69; as 
percentage of population, 68-69; popu- 
lation of, 68-69, 211; schools for, 90 

Grey, Edward, 21 

gross domestic product (GDP), 122, 162; 
per capita, 103; industry's share of, 
140; military appropriations, 226 
Gusinje: armed resistance in, 18 
Gypsies: geographic distribution of, 69 



Hamilton Oil, 143 

health: improvements in, 94 

health care, 94-96; under communists, 

45; inoculation programs, 94; subsidies 

for, 129 

health care professionals: number of, 45, 
94; training for, 45; women as, 132 
health facilities, 45; number of, 94; short- 
ages in, 96; sponsored by Red Cross, 27 
Helsinki Accords, 194, 229 
Helsinki Conference, 51 
Higher Agricultural Institute, 92 
Higher Pedagogic Institute, 92 
Higher Polytechnic Institute, 92 
highlanders {see also Gegs), 14, 26; culture 

of, 74-75; as fighters, 205 
housing, 96-98; construction, 96, 149, 
150; cost of, 129; crowding in, 96; de- 
stroyed, 98; privatization of, xxxvi, 120; 
in rural areas, 98; in urban areas, 98 
Hoxha, Enver, xxxv, 3; attempted coup 
against, 193; background of, 34, 67, 90, 
208, 209; as commander in chief, 
215-16; death of, 52; positions of, 36, 
37; reaction of, to Khrushchev, 46; rise 
to power by, 4, 39; succession to, 51-52, 
174 

Hoxha, Nexhmije, 174, 180 

Hoxha government, xxxv, 173-74; bru- 
tality of, 3, 171, 227-28; campaign 
against religion, 50, 85-87; economy 
under, 107-8; foreign relations under, 
192; isolation under, xxxv, 4, 38, 50, 
57, 166-67, 171, 213 

human rights, 184-85, 228; abuses, 175, 
230; attempts to improve, 184 

Hungary: trade agreement with, 44; trade 
with, 163 

Huns: arrival of, in Balkans, 8 



identification cards, 237 

Illyrians, 3, 4-7; conquered, 5; emigration 

of, 8; industry of, 5; intermarriage of, 

8; trade by, 5 
Illyrian Wars (229 B.C., 219 B.C.), 6 
IMF. See International Monetary Fund 
imports: from China, 114; from the West, 

165 

income, hard-currency: sources of, 114 
independence: declared, 16, 172, 203, 

204, 205; international support for, 21, 

206 

industrial development: under Hoxha, 
107 

industrial output: decline in, 117; under 
five-year plans, 109, 110, 113, 114; per 
capita, 106; as percentage of national 
income, 106 

industry, 140-50; foreign investment in, 
104; as percentage of gross domestic 
product, 140; inefficiencies in, 140; in- 
vestment in, 140; light, 147-48, 164; 
nationalization of, 39, 78, 173; privati- 
zation of, 120; women in, 132; under 
Zog, 32 

inflation, xxxvi, 117, 124 

infrastructure: development of, 106 

intellectuals, 183 

intelligentsia: pressure from, for reform, 
182; privileges of, 78; purges of, 78; 
resistance by, 175 
internal security, 227-38 
International Control Commission, 22 
International Court of Justice, 43 
International Monetary Fund (IMF), 
xxxvi; economic counseling by, 121; 
membership in, 123, 165; standby cred- 
it agreement with, 123, 165 
International Permanent Court of Justice, 
90 

International Police organization (Inter- 
pol), 234 

Interpol. See International Police organi- 
zation 

investment: under communist system, 
122-23; in energy sector, 142; foreign, 
165 

Ionian Sea, 59 
Iran: trade with, 164 
irrigation, 40, 134; projects, 64 
Islam: conversion to, 3, 9, 12, 13, 82, 84; 

ethnic distribution of, 75; reform in, 27 
Islam, Bektashi, 9, 13-14; number of 



277 



Albania: A Country Study 



adherents to, 82; women in, 14 
Islam, Sunni, 9; number of adherents to, 
82 

isolationism, 4, 38, 50, 57, 191-92, 194, 
213; effects of, xxxv, 166-67; end of, 
197 

Italian language: education in, 91 
Italy, 211; annexation of Albania by, 
32-33, 208-9; assistance from, 94, 96, 
104, 166, 234; attack on Greece by, 33; 
economic control by, 31, 105, 106, 203; 
education under, 90-91; emigration to, 
xxxv, 12, 16, 84, 117, 190-91, 224, 
229; improvements initiated by, 30; in- 
vestment from, 165; materiel from, 30; 
occupation by, 4, 23, 29-30, 32-33, 58, 
90-91, 207, 208-9; as predator, 24, 
25, 192, 207; as protector, 4; relations 
with, 175, 194-95, 196-97; resistance 
against, 35, 208-9; support by, for 
revolts, 23; trade negotiations with, 50; 
trade with, 162, 163; withdrawal, 209 



Janina, 15; armed resistance in, 18; un- 
der Ottoman rule, 16 
janissaries, 13, 205 
Jews: geographic distribution of, 69 
Julius Caesar, 6 
Justinian, 7 

Kadare, Ismail, 78, 183-84; defection of, 
184 

Karakaci, Muhamet, 218 
Kastrioti, Gjergi (see also Skanderbeg), 10, 
205 

Kastrioti, Gjon, 10 
Kastrioti family, 10; flag, 9 
Kelmendi, Ali, 34 

Khrushchev, Nikita, 210; fall of, from 

power, 49 
Klissura, Ali, 35 

Komsomol. See All-Union Lenin Com- 
munist Youth League 

Koprulii family, 13, 204 

Korea, Democratic People's Republic of 
(North Korea): trade with, 163 

Kosovo: Albanian control over, 33; Al- 
banian demographics in, 69; Albanian 
ties to, 22; Albanians in, 22, 69, 206, 
214-15; autonomy revoked, 69, 215; 
black market in, 160; border with, 58; 



ceded to Yugoslavia, 40; disputes over, 
22, 192; independence of, xxxvii; un- 
der Ottoman rule, 16; Serb ties to, 22; 
suppression of, 194, 196 

Kosovo Polje, battle of (1389), 22, 205 

Kupi, Abaz, 36 

kuvend (fealty ceremony), 7 



Lake Ohrid, 60, 63 
Lake Prespa, 60; drainage of, 64 
Lake Prespa e Vogel, 60 
Lake Scutari, 59 

land, 133-34; arable, 133; area, 22, 27; 
distribution of, 134-36; irrigated, 64, 
134; ownership, 26, 134-35; privatiza- 
tion of, 133; reclamation, 60, 112, 134; 
reform, 40, 85, 107-8, 134, 135 

language (see also under individual languages), 
57, 70-71; prohibitions against, 71 

Law on Major Constitutional Provisions 
(1991) (interim constitution), 178, 
188-89 

lawyers, 230 

League of Nations: recognition of Alba- 
nia by, 25 

Legality (resistance group), 36 

Leo the Isaurian, 7 

Libya: trade with, 164 

literacy rate, 26, 45, 87, 93; education to 
improve, 92; of women, 50 

literature, 27 

livestock: collectivized, 115, 133, 137; 

quality of, 137; smuggling of, 138 
living standards, 128-29; decline in, 129; 

in urban areas, 129 
looting, 104-5, 117, 128, 158, 166, 167 
lowlands: social leadership in, 75-76 



Macedonia, Republic of: Albanian 
minority in, xxxxvii, 22, 206; border 
with, 58, 211; recognition of, xxxvii; 
relations with, xxxvii 

Macedonians: geographic distribution of, 
69 

Mahmud II (sultan), 15 
Maleshova, Sejfulla, 192 
Malile, Reis, 195 
Mai Korab range, 60 
manufacturing, 146-49; chemical, 



278 



Index 



146-47; construction, 149-50; en- 
gineering, 147; food processing, 148-49 

Mao Zedong, 213 

Markagjoni, Gjon, 25 

marriage: laws regulating, 80; rate, 80; 
traditions, 76 

mass organizations, 179-81; goals of, 179 

materiel: air force, 222; armed forces, 
209; army, 220-21; from Britain, 223; 
from China, 220-22; from Italy, 30; 
from the Soviet Union, 220-22; from 
the United States, 33 

media, 181-82; censorship of, 182; na- 
tionalization of, 181; openness in, 175, 
186; regulation of, 189 

Mehmed II (sultan), 10, 12 

Meksi, Aleksander, xxxvi 

Mexico: trade with, 164 

middle ages, 8-9 

Military Academy, 226 

military: budget, 226-27; economy, 
226-27; schools, 225-26; service, 224 

military personnel, 223-26; conscripts, 
219, 222, 223, 224-25; desertion by, 
224; as laborers, 225; mobilization 
plans, 223-24; term of service, 223; 
women as, 223 

military training, 224, 225; of civilians, 
225; of conscripts, 224-25 

minerals: deposits of, 103, 144; explora- 
tion for, 106 

mining, 144; nationalization of, 78; 
privatization of, 120; working condi- 
tions in, 146 

Ministry of Construction, 150 

Ministry of Defense, 216 

Ministry of Domestic Trade, 156 

Ministry of Education, 156 

Ministry of Finance, 118-20; economic 
decision makers in, 118; inspectors, 120 

Ministry of Foreign Economic Relations, 
160 

Ministry of Foreign Trade, 159 

Ministry of Health, 156 

Ministry of Internal Affairs, 204, 228, 

231; abolished, 232; organization of, 

231-32 

Ministry of Justice, 233; eliminated, 49; 
Office of Investigations, 179; reestab- 
lished, 179 
Ministry of People's Defense, 233 
Ministry of Public Order, 204, 232, 233, 
234 

Ministry of the Communal Economy, 156 



Mirdite' Republic, 26 
Moisiu, Spiro, 208 

Montenegrans: geographic distribution 
of, 69 

Montenegro: Albanians in, 106; attempts 
by, to appropriate land, 16, 207; border 
with, 57, 211; lands ceded by, 22; lands 
ceded to, 17, 18; occupation by, 23; 
support by, for revolts, 23; relations 
with, xxxviii 

Mother Teresa, 87 

Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agen- 
cy, 165 
Murad II (sultan), 10, 12 
Murra, Prokop, 218 
Muslim aristocracy, 76-77, 84 
Muslims (see also Islam): number of, 82 
Mussolini, Benito, 4, 30, 31, 208, 209 
Mustaqi, Kico, 218 
Myftiu, Manush, 184 



Nano, Fatos, xxxvii, 179, 189 
National Assembly, 24, 25 
National Bank of Albania, 1123 
National Information Service (NIS), 

235-36; created, 190, 204, 232; mission 

of, 232 

nationalism: emergence of, 4, 16, 17-21, 
206 

nationalist movement: impediments to, 
19 

nationalization: of banks, 78; of forests, 
40, 107, 173; of industry, 39, 78, 173; 
of media, 181 ; of mining, 78; of public 
utilities, 107; of trade, 78; of transpor- 
tation, 39, 78, 107, 173 

National Land Commission, 135 

National Liberation Army (NLA), 35; 
battles, 209; formed, 208; troop 
strength, 209 

National Liberation Front (NLF), 36, 
172, 180, 203, 208 

National Liberation Movement (NLM), 
35, 172, 208 

National Lycee of Korce, 88 

National Privatization Agency: created, 
120 

National Union. See Balli Kombetar 
National Unity Party, 188 
NATO. See North Atlantic Treaty Or- 
ganization 
natural resources, 140-46 
navy, 222-23; bases of, 222; conscripts 



279 



Albania: A Country Study 



in, 222; mission of, 222; personnel 
strength of, 222; organization of, 222; 
origins of, 222; problems in, 222; ser- 
vice in, 224-25; ships, 223 

Near East Foundation, 90 

Nendori, 86 

net material product: agriculture as per- 
centage of, 103 
NIS. See National Information Service 
NLA. See National Liberation Army 
NLF. See National Liberation Front 
NLM. See National Liberation Movement 
Noli, Fan S., 27; resignation of, 28 
Noli government, 28-29, 34; overthrown, 
29 

Normans, 8 

north: beys in, 76; culture in, 74; family 
in, 75 

North Albanian Alps (Bjeshket e Namu- 
na), 59 

North Atlantic Cooperation Council: par- 
ticipation in, xxxvii, 214 

North Atlantic Treaty Organization 
(NATO), 213; membership in, xxxvii 

North Korea. See Korea, People's Demo- 
cratic Republic of 

Occidental Petroleum, 143 
oil {see also petroleum), 31, 103, 115 
OMONIA (Unity), xxxviii 
Opposition Party of Democrats, 28 
Organization of the Islamic Conference: 

membership in, xxxvii 
Orthodox Church. See Albanian Ortho- 
dox Church 
Ottoman Empire, 3-4; bondsmen, 12-13; 
conquest by, 9-12, 205; defeat of, 4; ex- 
pansion of, 9-10; independence from, 
204, 205 

Ottoman rule, 9-24; reforms under, 16; 
resistance to, 10-12, 21; revolts against, 
9, 205; social organization under, 76; 
suppression of Albanian culture under, 
19, 20; suppression of Albanian lan- 
guage under, 71; taxes under, 14 

Paris: as headquarters for exiles, 34 
Paris Peace Conference: delegation to, 24; 

division of Albania in, 25 
parliament: created, 25 
Pasha, Reshid, 15-16 



Pasha, Turgut (dervish), 18 
Pasha Liman: naval base, 222 
pashas, 84 

Pashko, Gramoz, 187 
Pashko, Vaso, 85 

pastureland, 138; grazing fees for, 138; 

nationalized, 40, 107, 173 
peaceful coexistence: opposition to, 46 
peasants, 14; benefits for, 107; income of, 

80; living conditions of, 77; oppression 

of, 116; revolts by, 28 
penal code, 230 
penal system, 230-31 
People's Army. See armed forces; army 
People's Assembly, 172, 178; armed 

forces under, 216; elections for, xxxv, 

39, 188; mission of, 178, 189; presidi- 
um of, 178; size of, 178 
people's councils, 179 
People's Police, 204, 232, 236-37; 

branches of, 236; mission of, 232, 237; 

service obligation in, 237 
People's Republic of China. See China, 

People's Republic of 
People's Socialist Republic of Albania. See 

Albania, People's Socialist Republic of 
perestroika, 183, 198 

petroleum (see also oil), 140, 142; export 
of, 164; reserves, 142; refineries, 142; 
work force in, 142 

Petroleum and Gas Directorate, 142 

Philby, Kim, 43-44 

Philip II, 5 

Plav: armed resistance in, 18 
Poland: trade agreement with, 44; trade 
with, 162 

Political Bureau (Politburo), 42, 176; 
privileges of, 79; women in, 82 

political parties (see also under individual par- 
ties): emergence of, 27 

political repression: under Hoxha, xxxv 

political protests, 186; by students, 183; 
by workers, 183, 229 

Pompey, 6 

Popular Party, 27 

population, 22, 26, 45, 57, 66, 130; age 
distribution in, 66, 130, 182, 223; den- 
sity, 66; ethnic distribution in, 66; loss- 
es in World War II, 37, 66; percentage 
of Greeks in, 68; settlement patterns, 
74; workers as percentage of, 79 

population statistics: birth rate, 26, 66, 



280 



Index 



103; death rate, 66; fertility rate, 66; 

growth rate, 66; infant mortality rate, 

26, 45, 94-96; life expectancy, 26, 66; 

maternal mortality rate, 96; sex ratio, 

66, 130, 223 
ports: privatization of, 120 
president, 189; as commander in chief, 

216 

Prevesa: armed resistance in, 18 

prices, 126-28; controls on, 156, 158, 
160; controls on, removed, 126-27, 
175; lowered, 126; of necessities, 128 

prisoners: amnesties for, 231; number of, 
231; political, 230, 231 

prisons, 230-31; conditions in, 231 

privatization, 103; of agriculture, 118, 
120; disputes under, 136; of commu- 
nications, 120; of economic enterprises, 
118; of food industry, xxxvi, 148; of 
forests, 120; of housing, xxvi, 120; of 
industry, 120; of land, 133; of mining, 
120; progress of, 120-21, 185; of trade, 
158, 187; of transportation, 120 

Prizren: armed resistance in, 18 

Prizren League, 4; abolished, 19, 20; 
armed resistance by, 18, 20; formed, 
16, 17, 20; goals of, 17; leaders of, 
deported, 19; memorandum by, sent to 
Congress of Berlin, 18 

Progressive Party, 27 

propaganda, 155, 182 

property: ownership of, 120-21; private, 
120-21; reforms, 120 

purges, 43, 46, 51, 114, 172, 173, 174, 
192, 228 



radio, 155; regulation of, 189 

railroads, 152; damage to, 152; privati- 
zation of, 120; shipping on, 152 

reforms: under Alia, 182-91; electoral, 
185; initial stages, 182-84; under Ot- 
tomans, 16; political, 183; pressure for, 
182; sources of, 182 

religion (see also under individual sects), 57, 
82-87; abolished, 50, 85-87; punish- 
ment for practicing, 86-87; revival of, 
87, 230; secret practice of, 13, 84-85, 
86-87 

repression, 227-231 

Republican Party, 187-88; in coalition 
government, 190 



Republic of Macedonia. See Macedonia, 
Republic of 

resistance, 21; by communists, 34; by in- 
telligentsia, 175; against Italy, 35; 
against Montenegro, 25; by Prizren 
League, 18; against Serbia, 25; under 
Skanderbeg, 10-12; to Young Turks, 
20-21 

revolts, 23; anticommunist, 117, 173; by 
peasants, 28 

Rexha, Lumturie, 181 

Rilindja Demokratike, 182, 186, 187 

rivers, 59, 63; channels of, 64; flooding 
of, 63; navigability of, 63 

roads, 59, 150, 151-52; absence of, 106; 
construction of, 151; maintenance of, 
151; network of, 151; privatization of, 
120; traffic on, 151 

Roman Catholic Church. See Catholic 
Church, Roman 

Romania: assistance from, 234; emigra- 
tion to, 12, 16; military relations with, 
212; relations with, xxxviii, 198; trade 
agreement with, 44; trade with, 162 

Roman rule, 3; soldiers under, 205 

Rumelia, 16; under Ottoman rule, 16 

rural areas: development in, 74; electric- 
ity in, 144; housing in, 98; travel res- 
trictions in, 115 

Russo-Turkish War (1877-78), 17, 84 

Rustemi, Avni, 28 



Sarande: naval base, 222; port of, 152, 
230 

savings, 125-26; rate, 125 
Savings Bank, 123 

Sazan Island: dismanding of Soviet naval 
station, 48, 211; naval base, 222; Soviet 
naval installation on, 44, 210 

schools: American, 88-90; collapse of, 94; 
elementary, 88; enrollment, 93-94; 
foreign-language, 90; languages in, 19, 
41, 87; number of, 45; primary, 92; re- 
organized, 93; secondary, 92; spon- 
sored by foreign occupying powers, 88; 
sponsored by Red Cross, 27; teacher- 
training, 84, 92; trade, 92; vocational, 
92 

secret police, 227-28, 228 
security forces, 231-38; organization of, 
232 



281 



Albania: A Country Study 



security police. See Directorate of State 
Security 

security policy, 211-15; focus of, 212; suc- 
cess of, 212 
Selami, Eduard, xxxvii 
self-reliance, 51 
Seman River, 64 

Serbia: attempts by, to appropriate land, 
16, 207; border with, 57, 211; lands 
ceded by, 22; lands ceded to, 17; occu- 
pation by, 23, 58; problems with, 211; 
support by, for revolts, 23 

Serbo-Croatian language: taught in Al- 
banian schools, 41 

Serbs: arrival of, in Balkans, 8; geograph- 
ic distribution of, 69; massacre by, 25; 
ties of, to Kosovo, 22 

Shehu, Mehmet, 173; background of, 34, 
90; death of, 52, 174; as defense mini- 
ster, 218; as prime minister, 45, 179; 
reaction of, to Khrushchev, 46; rise to 
power by, 4 

Shengjin: naval base, 222; port of, 152, 
230 

Shevardnadze, Eduard A., 199 
Shkoder, 15, 74; armed resistance in, 18; 

under Ottoman rule, 16; riots in, 117 
Sigurimi. See Directorate of State Security 
Skander (prince), 33 
Skanderbeg (see also Kastrioti, Gjergi), 3, 

9, 10, 204, 205; resistance under, 10-12 
Skanderbeg Military School, 225-26 
Skanderbeg SS Division, 36 
Slovenia: relations with, xxxviii 
smuggling, 160-62 

Social Democratic Party, 188; in coalition 
government, 190 

Socialist Party of Albania (SPA) (see also 
Albanian Communist Party; Albanian 
Party of Labor), 175-76, 190, 217 

social insurance, 98-99; child care, 99, 
129; disability benefits, 98; expendi- 
tures for, 98; maternity benefits, 98-99; 
retirement benefits, 98 

social system, 74-82; classes in, 77-78, 
79; under communist rule, 77-82; po- 
sitions under, 78; traditional patterns 
in, 74-77 

Society for the Economic Development of 
Albania, 30, 31 

Society for the Printing of Albanian Writ- 
ings, 19 

south: culture in, 74 



Soviet-Albanian Friendship Society, 199 
Soviet Union: assistance from, xxxv, 4, 
45, 47, 104, 109, 110, 111, 210; as- 
sistance from, cut off, 156, 201; at- 
tempted coup in, 190; Czechoslovakia 
invaded by, 193, 212, 224; dependence 
on, 109-11, 212; dismantling of Sazan 
Island naval station, 48; espionage by, 
193; impact of, on economy, 49, 105; 
military assistance from, 203, 220, 224; 
naval installation of, on Sazan Island, 
44; as protector, 42, 203, 210; relations 
of, with China, 47; relations with, 
44-46, 198, 199, 211, 214; trade agree- 
ment with, 44; trade with, 110, 159 
SPA. See Socialist Party of Albania 
Spanish Civil War, 34 
Spiru, Nako, 41; death of, 42 
Stalin, Joseph, 3 

State Bank of Albania, 123; exchange 
rates set by, 124; speculation by, 122- 
23 

Stefani, Simon, 231 

Strait of Otranto, 58 

strikes, 133, 143, 148, 229 

student demonstrations, xxxv, 177, 183, 

229; causes of, 185-86; in Kosovo, 69; 

in Tirane, 185, 188 
students: Alia's meeting with, 185; as 

party members, 217; pressure from, for 

reform, 182; women as, 80, 94 
Sublime Porte, 14; reforms under, 16 
subsidies, 129; elimination of, 124 
Supreme Court, 179, 189 
Switzerland: assistance from, 96 



Tamerlane, 10 

tanzimat (reforms), 16 

taxes: array of, 125; collection of, 124; in- 
come, eliminated, 112, 124; under Ot- 
toman rule, 14; on profits, 125; on war 
profits, 107 

teachers: number of, 45, 94; training for, 
88, 92 

telephone: calls, 155; density, 155; net- 
work, 150 
television, 155; regulation of, 189 
terrorism, 20 
Teuta (queen), 6 
Thane reservoir, 64 
Thopia, Karl, 10 



282 



Thracians, 5 

Tirane: as capital city, 25; location of, 57; 

riots in, 117; urban dwellers in, 74 
Tirane Textile Combine, 148 
Tito, Josip Broz, 35, 41, 192 
topography, 59-63; central uplands, 60; 

coastal belt, 59-60; elevation, 140-42; 

mountains, 59-63 
Toptani, Esad Pasha, 22 
Toptani family, 75 

Tosks (lowlanders), 9, 14; characteristics 
of, 68; emigration by, 16; families of, 
75; feudal society of, 77; under Hox- 
ha, 67; marriage traditions of, 76; per- 
centage of, in population, 66; political 
power of, 39; religion of, 75; social or- 
ganization of, 76-77 
tourism, 158-59; volume of, 159 
trade (see also exports; imports; balance of 
trade): with China, 114; collectives in, 
156; commodity pattern of, 164-65; 
with developing countries, 164; food as 
percentage of, 158; government mo- 
nopoly on, 159-60; liberalization of, 
118, 127; nationalization of, 78; part- 
ners, 162-64; privatized, 158, 187; re- 
tail, 156; with the Soviet Union, 110; 
supply networks, 156; with the West, 
159, 197; women in, 132; work force 
in, 130 

trade agreements: with Czechoslovakia, 
44; with France, 50; with Greece, 31; 
with Hungary, 44; with Italy, 50; with 
Poland, 44; with Romania, 44; with the 
Soviet Union, 44; with Yugoslavia, 31 
trade unions, 127, 132-33, 181 
transportation, 150-51; air, 152; borrow- 
ing for, 30; under five-year plans, 109; 
hijacking in, 152; nationalization of, 
39, 78, 173; privatization of, 120; 
problems with, 74; public, 129, 150-51; 
railroads, 150, 152; roads, 150, 151-52; 
water, 152; work force in, 130 
travel: passes, 150; restrictions, 185 
Treaty of Bucharest (1913), 22 
Treaty of Friendship, Cooperation, and 
Mutual Aid with Yugoslavia (1946), 
192 

Treaty of Kuchuk-Kainarji (1774), 84 
Treaty of London (1913), 21; (1915), 23 
Treaty of San Stefano (1878): opposition 

to, 17-18; signed, 17 
Treaty of Tirane, First (1926), 30, 31, 



Index 



207; Second (1926), 30, 207 
Turkey: assistance from, 166; investment 
from, 165; relations with, xxxvii, 175, 
194, 196, 213; trade with, 164 
Turkish language, 71 ; as language of edu- 
cation, 88 



unemployment, 94, 117, 130-32, 167 
Uniate Church, 12, 84 
UNICEF. See United Nations Children's 
Fund 

Union for Human Rights, xxxviii 
Union of Agriculture and Procurements 

Workers, 181 
Union of Albanian Women, 181 
Union of Albanian Working Youth, 180, 

217 

Union of Education and Trade Workers, 
181 

Union of Workers of Industry and Con- 
struction, 181 

United Higher Officers' School, 226 

United Nations: admission to, 43, 192; 
Alia's visit to, 199-200 

United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF), 
96 

United Nations Human Rights Commit- 
tee, 184 

United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation 
Administration: aid from, 41, 108 

United States: assistance from, 96, 108, 
166; emigration to, 16; materiel from, 
33; plans of, to overthrow communists, 
43-44; relations with, 43-44, 192, 198- 
99, 214; schools run by, 88-90; support 
by, 25; trade with, 164 

United Trade Unions of Albania, 181 

Unity. See OMONIA 

universities: education in foreign, 90-91; 
scholarships for, 90-91 

University of Pristina, 70 

University of Tirane Hospital, 96 

urban areas: housing in, 98; living stan- 
dards in, 129; populations in, 74 



Venetians, 8, 205 

Verlaci, Shefqet Bey, 27, 28, 31; death 
sentence on, 29; as prime minister, 28, 
33 



283 



Albania: A Country Study 



Via Egnatia, 7, 10 
Victor Emmanuel III (king), 32, 33 
Vjose-Levan-Fier irrigation canal, 64 
Vjose River, 64 

Vlachs: geographic distribution of, 69 
Vlore: naval base, 222; port of, 152, 230; 

urban dwellers in, 74 
Vrioni family, 75 



wages, 112, 117, 125-28; average, 126, 
127, 128-29; decline in, 126, 127; 
egalitarian structure of, 127; modifica- 
tion of, 127 

Warsaw Pact. See Warsaw Treaty Organi- 
zation 

Warsaw Treaty Organization (Warsaw 
Pact), 213; membership in, 46, 210, 
211, 212 

water transportation, 152-55; ferry ser- 
vice, 152, 196; merchant fleet, 152 

West Germany. See Germany, Federal 
Republic of 

Wilhelm of Wied (prince), 22-23; exiled, 
23 

Wilson, Woodrow, 25 

women: in agriculture, 82; in armed 
forces, 223; in Bektashi Islam, 14; in 
communist party, 80, 82; in Geg clans, 
68; education of, 80, 94; literacy of, 50; 
maternity leave for, 98-99; offenses 
against, 76; in politics, 176; rights of, 
50, 80, 181 ; roles of, 76; in work force, 
80, 132 

workers: conditions for, 130; freedoms of, 
117; living conditions of, 77; man- 
agement of enterprises by, 121 ; moon- 
lighting by, 113; as percentage of 
population, 79; pressure from, for re- 
form, 182; productivity, 130; protests, 
183; public service details, 130 

work force: in agriculture, 103, 130, 
135-36; in communications, 130; in 
construction, 130; in education, 130; in 
energy sector, 142; size of, 130; in 
trade, 130; women in, 80, 130, 132 

Worner, Manfred, xxxvii 

World Bank: counseling from, 121, 140, 
167; membership in, 165 

World War I, 23-24, 206-7 



World War II, 208-9; losses from, 37, 66, 
98 



Xoxe, Koci, 38, 39, 173, 210, 228; ex- 
ecuted, 43, 192 

Young Turks (Committee of Union and 
Progress): education under, 88; goals 
of, 20; rebellion by, 20; resistance to, 
20-21; rule by, 20 

Ypi, Xhafer, 28 

Yugoslavia: assistance from, xxxv, 4, 41, 
104; border problems with, 215; con- 
trol by, 24, 105, 108-9, 203, 228; de- 
pendence on, 108-9, 212; economic 
agreements with, 108; economic con- 
trol by, 41-42; economic policies of, 46; 
expelled by Cominform, 40, 109, 192, 
210; exports to, 144; investment by, 41; 
Kosovo under, 194, 2115; lands ac- 
quired by, 30, 40; lands desired by, 37; 
military assistance from, 33, 203, 212; 
mistrust of, 46; as predator, 25-26, 
192; problems with, 211; rail line to, 
152, 163; relations with, 50, 175, 192, 
193, 195, 213; technical agreements 
with, 108; tensions with, 40, 42; trade 
agreement with, 31; trade with, 
162-63, 196; treaty with, 108; Zogu ex- 
iled to, 28 

Yugoslav People's Army, 215 

Zen i Popullit, 116, 182 

Zhulali, Safet, xxxvii 

Zog (king) {see also Ahmed Bey Zogu), 24, 
75, 77; ascension of, 31; assassination 
attempt on, 31; clans under, 67; econ- 
omy under, 32; industry under, 32; 
overthrown, 4, 24; in plans to over- 
throw communists, 43-44 

Zogolli family, 75 

Zogu, Ahmed Bey {see also Zog), 24; 
armed forces under, 207; assassination 
attempt on, 28; background of, 27-28, 
75; death sentence on, 29; economy un- 
der, 106; exiled to Yugoslavia, 28; op- 
position to, 28; overthrow of Noli by, 
29; as president, 29; repression by, 28, 
29; social structure under, 77 



284 



Contributors 



Walter R. Iwaskiw is Senior Research Specialist in Eurasian and 
East European Affairs, Federal Research Division, Library of 
Congress, Washington, D.C. 

Amy Knight is Senior Research Specialist in Eurasian and East 
European Affairs, Federal Research Division, Library of Con- 
gress, Washington, D.C. 

Karl Wheeler Soper is Analyst of Eurasian and East European 
Affairs, U.S. Navy, Washington, D.C. 

Charles Sudetic is Correspondent for the New York Times, covering 
Yugoslavia, Bosnia, Croatia, Albania, Bulgaria, and Romania. 

Raymond E. Zickel is Head, Eurasian and East European Sec- 
tion, Federal Research Division, Library of Congress, Washing- 
ton, D.C. 



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